In All I've Done
by theatricalveggie
Summary: "That's when I feel it. A piece of the hurt fades." This is the final book of the Light Up Series - a growing back together story. Katniss and Peeta return home and try to find themselves again. [Light Up Series - Book 5]
1. Chapter 1 - Homecoming

"I was just baking," Peeta says as I follow him into the kitchen, leaving my bag by the door. He sweeps a hand across the kitchen table and catches the crumbs in his cupped palm. Peeta drops them in the trash, blushing slightly. He's cleaning up as though he has a visitor, not a person who practically lived here with him. He isn't looking at me. Instead, he moves some pans and things to the sink and runs the water for a second before wiping the counter with a cloth. He leaves the cooling rack on the counter.

"Do you want something to drink?" he asks, catching my eye and bashfully looking away again. He doesn't know what to do with himself.

"Oh, yeah. I'd love some water. Or tea," I reply just as awkwardly.

"I can do that," Peeta says, grateful for a task for his unhappily idle hands. He turns his back to me and fills a teapot with water before setting it on the stove. He grabs some herbs and tea from the cabinet and puts the loose leaves in a mesh bag before dropping it in a mug.

 _My_ mug.

When he slides the hot beverage across the counter and into my hands, our fingers brush.

"Sorry," he whispers slightly, withdrawing just a step. He's waiting for me to make the first move. To step forward. To let him in. But unlike all the other times we've done this dance, he's trying to bury a grin. His cheeks are flushed. "I just can't believe you're really here."

"Well, from what I've heard you had a lot to do with that," I offer.

"Oh, not really," Peeta obviates, his hand reaching to the back of his head and brushing over his hair. "I mean, I made my case, but I don't know if I really changed anything…" He lets his voice drop off. Neither of us can take a compliment. The timer on the oven buzzes its way undesirably into our conversation, like a fly in a cup of soup. Peeta turns his attention to the stove and I stare at my tea. I watch the tea bag steep – the black liquid invading the clear water around it. It's quiet except for the sound of pans on metal racks and the water sloshing in my cup, so when the kitchen door bursts open I leap up from my seat.

"Peet! There's a train down at the station! Have you heard anything?" Rye Mellark asks in a bubbly tone. He follows Peeta's gaze behind him and turns to face me. I watch his blue eyes as they bulge from his head.

"Katniss," Peeta says softly, stepping toward me with his hands out. "Can I have the knife?"

"What?" I ask. I look at my hand and realize I'm clasping a blade so tightly I can't even feel my fingertips. I scan the counter and realize I must have pulled it from the knife block. I don't even know when that happened. I loosen my hand and the knife slips from my fingers and clangs precariously on the ground. I don't bother stepping away to avoid the sharp, bobbing edge.

"I'm sorry," I mumble, retreating backward.

"Katniss, it's okay," Peeta whispers, but my hands shove him away from me sloppily.

"I'm sorry," I repeat before I turn and run out the front door. I don't know exactly where I'm going. My eyes follow the street out of the village, but I can't walk through a graveyard right now. Not today. I stare at my house but I know that will be worse. Instead I cross toward one of the vacant homes. I break a window in the basement and crawl through. A straggling piece of glass catches the back of my arm and cuts a thin, small slice into my skin before I realize what's wrong. "Ouch!" I hiss as I clasp my arm. I feel the blood pooling under my fingers – hot and sticky and recognizable, like an old friend. The basement is damp and full of cobwebs and dust. I lean my back against the wall and try to calm the rhythm of my heart.

In. Out. In.

I hear Peeta outside, shouting my name. I ignore him, but I haven't gone very far and it doesn't take long for him to find me. He crawls into the basement and squats in front of me.

"Hey there," he says as he pulls a clump of dirt from my hair. It's still short, but it's long enough that it's starting to get in my eyes. It makes me want to cut it off all over again. "You gave Rye a scare but he's fine. I mean, he kept saying how he could have taken you if he really had to, but aside from being delusional he's fine," Peeta jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

"Maybe I shouldn't be around anyone for a while," I say. Peeta drops himself beside me, pressing his back against the wall. He won't dignify my comment with a response. "Is Rye staying with you?" I ask.

"No, he and Delly took up one of the houses up the street," he says as he digs his toe into the line of dust that covers every inch of the cement floor. "They… they don't plan on staying. He just wanted to make sure I was okay first."

"Where are they going?" I ask.

"They want to live somewhere new. They're talking about Eleven, maybe. Delly wants a garden. You can't grow much of anything in coal ash," Peeta relents. I stare at the ground. I should know how to comfort him by now, but in this moment I can't even comfort myself. "Are you bleeding?" Peeta asks, spying the damp red stain on my arm.

"Oh. Um, I think so?" I don't get much out before he's hoisted me to my feet.

"Come on. I'm sure there's a first aid kit upstairs. The houses are all identical," Peeta says, leading his way up the basement stairs and expecting me to follow. When we reach the upstairs bathroom, Peeta finds a first aid kit in the same place as his house. My shirt sleeve is soaked. It's not a bad wound, but the blood would make you think I'd lost an arm or something. I sit on the edge of the bathtub and pull the ruined shirt from my skinny body. Whatever was once attractive about me has faded. I'm too thin. There's no muscle on my frame. My skin is yellowed by the healing bruises from beatings in prison. Burn scars swirl across my torso as if someone had swept my body in acid. I'm hideous. I know I am by the way Peeta's face shifts when he turns around and looks at me.

"What is this?" Peeta asks, his hands ghosting over my yellow, faded skin. I remember when these wounds were black and fresh. "Did they hurt you?" he chokes out. "They aren't supposed to do that now. There's a law…"

"It was the other prisoners," I respond quickly, trying to cover myself fruitlessly with my scrawny, rail-like arms. I can feel him vibrating next to me, trying to act nonchalant and failing miserably.

We are supposed to be healing and instead I feel like hiding. I pull the shirt back over my body.

"You know what? It's fine," I murmur, the wet bloody cotton now cold as it sticks to my skin. "I can just wait here until…"

Peeta sits on the edge of the porcelain tub beside me and cups my face in his hands. "Rye left. He's not mad. He thought you and I might need some space," Peeta says. Great. Now I'm driving a wedge between him and his brother. I turn so Peeta's hands slide away.

"He shouldn't have to do that," I murmur.

"He's been hovering since I got here. I swear if I hear him say _'You okay, Peet?_ ' one more time I'll pull a knife on him myself. Please be my excuse for some space," he pleads. The old Peeta never would have made a joke like that. The old me would have laughed.

We head back to Peeta's place. My homeless bag still sits by the door. I could run. Make an easy escape. "Do you want some breakfast?" I shake my head no.

The rest of the day we simply coexist in his house together. Peeta bakes. I stare out the window. Peeta leaves for a quick stint to deliver bread down to the market. He asks if I want to come, but I decline the offer. Instead, I find a book in his office and start reading. The Capitol put these here, so I dismiss any validity right from the start. The book is written like a diary of a young girl. I realize that Prim's diaries are probably next door in her room. The thought makes my body flush with heat then cold. I put the book back on the shelf, curl up on the small sofa, and close my eyes. I try to pretend the day away. By the time I open them again, it's already too dark to see without a light and I don't bother to turn one on.

Peeta comes upstairs and finds me. He assumes I'm asleep because he grabs a quilt from the linen closet and drapes it over my body. He pauses for a moment, taking me in.

"You're beautiful. You know that?" he whispers, words he knows I'd rebuff if I were awake. Words he wants to say to me but can't. I don't know how he still finds me beautiful after all this. Not only is my body burned and broken, my personality is too. I'm reclusive and moody. I don't eat or talk. I'm not curious or adventurous. I've never been particularly kind. I'm quick to anger and slow to forgive. I hear him creep out of the door and slowly close it behind him. The sink runs in the master bathroom, then the shower. Some drawers open and close, until finally it's silent for a while. I lie on the couch, breathing in an out until I can't stand it anymore. I wrap the quilt around my body and pad down the hall. Peeta's door opens with a creak and he looks up at me blurrily. He was barely asleep. Neither of us will ever sleep heavily again.

"Hey," he says, a crooked smile spreading across his sleepy mouth. He props himself up in bed. He's sleeping on top of the blankets. The air is warm with an early summer heat. A slight breeze sweeps in through his cracked window. "Do you need something? You hungry?"

I walk across the room and drop into the bed beside him, still wrapped up tight in my quilted cocoon. I rest my head on the pillow next to Peeta's and he examines me in the dark.

"You want to sleep here? I didn't want to assume…"

I don't say anything, I just nudge my body closer to his. Peeta smiles softly.

"I'm sorry," I offer. "About earlier."

"Don't be," Peeta says, pushing a piece of hair from my eye. He's quiet for a moment, contemplating if he should say what he wants to say next. "Your defense wasn't a lie, Katniss. In your head, you are still at war. I think I am too, a little. It's going to take a while to come down from that. You can't beat yourself up. You just have to give it time."

For once, that's something we both have plenty of.

Time.

"Night," I whisper into the dark. The fingers in my hair slide to my cheek, running his thumb over my skin and then pulling them back to the safety of his sides.

"Good night, Katniss," Peeta whispers back.


	2. Chapter 2 - A Giant, Gaping Hole

I wake up to Peeta sitting on the edge of the bed, a mug of tea in his hands.

"Morning," he says as he slides to cup onto the nightstand.

"Morning," I grumble, turning away from him and burying my head under a pillow. Last night was the first time I've slept in ages. Normally night is a string of waking and fitful terrors. I don't want this peace to end but my stomach growls in protest. I try to ignore it, but after a minute I sit up and grab the mug. A small burst of laughter shoots from Peeta's mouth and he claps his hand over his lips in a futile attempt to stop it.

"Sorry," he mumbles through his fingers, but I can still see the grin in the wrinkles of his eyes. "It's just… is this what my hair looks like in the morning? You've never had short hair before so… it's totally plastered to your head on one side. It looks like you've been out in a wind storm or something."

I glare at him and the smile drops from his lips.

"I'm sorry, Katniss. I didn't mean to laugh at –"

Before he can finish the words I smash him in the face with his pillow. The word _you_ is muffled with a feathery thud.

"Oh, this is war," Peeta says before grabbing a pillow in each hand and swinging them at me. I seize the last pillow and use it as a shield while batting at him with the other. He jumps onto the bed and tries to use his size to his advantage, but I wriggle away from him and slam him in the ribs. It's not long before the two of us are panting, limbs tangled. We give the pillows one final, powerful swing and they explode sending hundreds of feathers floating through the air. I drop down, chest heaving, face red from exertion. Peeta collapses on top of me, his head on my chest.

"It's snowing," he whispers, watching the white feathers drift aimlessly toward the wooden floor.

"I'm not cleaning any of this up," I answer. I feel him grin against me.

"I wouldn't expect you to," he replies. Peeta lifts his head up to mine, propping his body up with an elbow on either side of me. We are close. We are so unbearable close, yet not close enough. I study his face; run my eyes over his jaw, his lips, his nose. "What are you looking for?" he whispers.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. Peeta hoists himself out of bed and heads toward the door.

"I'll clean this up after breakfast. Come eat," he says almost nonchalantly before he disappears into the hall. I take the mug of tea and drink it slowly, contemplating the feathery floor. I don't go down until the cup is empty. Peeta pretends not to notice and smiles as I pull a stool up to the counter. He drops a couple pieces of golden bread on my plate.

"What is this?" I ask, poking it with my fork.

"It's called french toast. We used to make it at home because it's one of the only good uses for stale bread. I also have this!" Peeta makes a production of pulling out a glass bottle from behind his back. Its amber contents glimmer as it catches the sun, and for a moment I'm sent tumbling back in time.

My father. The forest. A spile of dripping, sticky sap. The jungle. The heat. Dry tongues. A spile of warm water. Death. Death. I lose my balance a little bit on my chair.

"Or no syrup," Peeta answers, clearly gauging my reaction. "We were never allowed to have any at the bakery anyway. We just ate it dry," he says lightly, turning to put the jar back in the cupboard.

"No, I want it," I say, and he turns back and sets the glass bottle in front of me. I pour it over the toast and watch the bread drink up the sugary gift. "Where'd you get this?"

"Thom tapped a tree behind his house," Peeta explains. Thom. I haven't thought about Thom in what feels like ages. I didn't even know he survived. I don't remember seeing him in 13, but I was sort of preoccupied. Guilt flushes over me and I bury it in my stomach.

"How many people are back?" I ask, cutting the toast with my fork. The sweet, sticky bread melts on my tongue. I taste butter and I have to stifle a moan. Peeta grins as I greedily cut off another piece.

"A couple hundred. They set up a little village just outside of town. There's a market and some people are running shops out of their houses. Mostly, though, we're trying to clean up. Rebuild. The Capitol has been sending us rations of food since we can't produce enough on our own right now. But we'll turn it around," Peeta explains, watching me swirl the soggy bread through a puddle of syrup. "You want more?" he asks. I nod, although my stomach already feel swollen to its limits. "There are a bunch of people from Thirteen, too," he says as he slides another piece onto my plate. "Here to help with the clean-up. They're staying in the village in these temporary bunks."

Peeta says more but I've stopped listening. It's when I try to swallow that I feel everything start to lurch up. I drop my fork on my plate and bolt for the bathroom, but I know I won't make it. Instead I drop to my knees and vomit in a paper bag propped next to the waste bin. I heave two more times before I lie on the floor and press my sweat-sheened face on its cool, wooden planks.

"I'm sorry. I should have known better," Peeta says, taking the soggy paper bag and dropping it in the trash. He sits on the floor facing me. "That was so stupid of me. I'm sorry." I sit up and drop my forehead onto his shoulder, my chest resting against his, our legs jetting out in opposite directions. Before either of us know what's happening, he slips his hand up the back of my shirt and gently runs his rough hands over the skin of my back. I draw my head up and meet his eyes, my heart panicking behind my ribs. His hand stops, realizing what he's done. His eyes are wide as he meets my stare. "I'm sorry, I –"

I lean forward and kiss him softly. Slowly. I'm sure I taste like syrup and vomit. We stay still, our lips pressed together. We break apart unhurriedly and I can feel his breath hot on my mouth. His free hand slides up my neck, along my cheek, and knots itself in my hair, drawing my lips back toward his. We kiss again, our mouths moving together this time. His tongue slips along my bottom lip and I open my mouth slightly. His fingers tug my hair faintly as I let him in. My tongue tentatively meets his, stroking and tasting him. Heat billows over my body, pools in my stomach. He starts moving the hand on my back, his thumb caressing my skin delicately. There is a hunger shooting through my limbs, scorching every inch of my body. I crawl into his lap and tug at his shirt with my hands.

"Wait, Kat," Peeta whispers into my mouth. "We should wait."

"I don't want to wait," I reply through feverish kisses on his mouth, his jaw. He groans and I soak up the sound. I pull his shirt over his head and toss it to the ground. He pants and I can't be this far apart from him anymore. I grab his neck and drop until my back hits the floor, pulling him on top of me.

"I want you," Peeta breathes as he pulls at the collar of my tee shirt, exposing my throat and pressing his mouth to the place where my pulse hammers a feverish and uncontrolled rhythm. I gasp and arch my back slightly and his whole body trembles in response.

A knock on the door sends us flying apart. Peeta's false leg slams the trash bin and it knocks over, sending rubbish all over the kitchen floor. I stare at him, panting, lips swollen, eyes wide.

"Um, I'll get this. You get the door," he responds, righting the waste basket before he grabs the broom from the closet. He finds his shirt on the floor and tugs it over his head. With every step away from him I feel more and more angry with myself. I'm not in control. I'm not thinking. I'm not –

I lose all train of thought with the visitor at the door. I stare at him and all the breath leaves my body. The olive skin. His dark hair, gray eyes. Wide shoulders. It's like I'm staring at a ghost. My hand slips from the door knob and the door slowly creeps forward until it hits the wall.

"I heard you were back. I just had to see for myself," he says. There's something bitter in his voice. Something boiling below the surface. Gone is the shy smile he saved for my sister. Rory Hawthorne is practically vibrating on Peeta's porch.

"Rory," I say, the blush evaporating from my cheek.

"Are you having a service for Prim?" he asks curtly.

"What?" I ask.

"You haven't even thought about it. Unbelievable," Rory responds. He kindles his brother's fire, his brother's fury.

"I –"

"We had a ceremony for Gale. Posy didn't understand, so we had to explain it all to her. There was nothing left to bury, so Posy drew him a picture and we buried it next to Dad. You obviously weren't around," Rory spits out.

"I'm sorry, Rory," I whisper.

"You should be," he says, turning on his heel and stomping down the front steps. He pauses when his feet hit the grass. He turns back.

"If you have a service, I want to be there," Rory says firmly.

"Okay," I reply.

"I loved her, you know," he says, his voice low.

"Me too, Rory," I offer, but he's already gone. I stand staring at the grass, his familiar figure getting smaller with the distance. It's like I'm watching Gale walk away from me, like he did so many times.

"Hey, who was that?" Peeta asks as he approaches me, wiping his damp hands on his pant legs. He reaches for my arm but I pull back.

"I'm tired," I say, spinning on my heels and stomping up the stairs. I reach Peeta's room but hesitate. I need space. I open the door to the study. I stare at the desk, the books. Everything is pristine. Peeta doesn't even let the dust settle.

It's all I want. Everything is so raw and I just want the dust to settle. I feel like maybe, in this moment, I should be covered in dust.

I open the door to the study closet. Stacked high on a shelf are boxes of paper. Office supplies. Spare scissors. I drop to the floor, bury my head in my knees, and let the time slip away.

"Katniss?" I hear a soft knock on the door. I just ignore it until the sun disappears and moonlight sneaks under the crack of the door. I feel my body shivering as the night air chills, but I ignore it. I see a shadow interrupt the moonbeam. Peeta settles on the other side of the door.

"Do you want a blanket?" he asks. I don't answer. "Can I come in with you?" I don't answer that either. He stands and opens the closet door. He steps inside, closes us in again, and sits on the other side so our feet meet in the middle. I stare at the floor. "When I was here alone, I was having a really hard time," Peeta says. I don't acknowledge him, but I focus my eyes instead of letting everything blur. I trace his shoe laces. "I miss my family. I miss my dad. But up here, in the Village, I miss Prim. She was the one that made me feel welcome here. For so long she was my only friend. I opened my recipe book the other day and I found a paper she scribbled all over tucked between the pages. I used it to bookmark the sugar cookies recipe, or she did... I don't remember things before the hijacking very clearly and I lost so much of her when they erased you. But I remember her sitting on my kitchen stool, swinging her legs and doing math. I remember drawing monsters in the margins of her homework. Mostly I just remember not feeling so alone. And now, every time I'm by myself in this house, I feel like there is this giant gaping hole in my life. I try to figure out how such a little girl left such a big hole, but she did."

I realize I'm not breathing, but neither is Peeta. When I look up his eyes are glistening with tears that he refuses to let fall. He wipes his face with his hands and pushes himself up. He drops a blanket over my legs and leaves the closet, closing the door quietly in his wake. His feet pad down the hallway toward his room.

My little sister weaseled her way into his heart. I'm not the only one grieving her.

I wrap the crocheted blanket around my shoulders, slipping my fingers through the loose weave and forcing myself to my feet. Peeta's bedroom is black save for the beam of light escaping from the cracked bathroom door. I walk over and the door protests with a loud creak as I push it open. He's sitting on the edge of his bathtub, a toothbrush in his hand, paste dry and untouched.

"She left a giant, gaping hole," I repeat. Peeta looks at me and nods.

"I'm sorry. I was supposed to put you back together but… I might need you to put me back together, too," Peeta says, staring at his hands.

"Then get over here," I reply, opening my arms. He sweeps his around my waist, pulling me in tight. I close myself around him, wrapping us both in the blanket. We eventually make our way to the bed and fall asleep, tangled in yarn, our bodies indistinguishable from one another.

Dawn comes in quietly, sneaking up on us, until the sun is bright and impossible to ignore. But we stay knotted together in the blanket. Sometimes it's okay to lose time, if you do it with a friend. If you aren't alone.


	3. Chapter 3 - Let the Night Win

When I open my eyes for good, I realize Peeta's bedroom is still covered with feathers. This normally tidy-to-a-fault boy has left the room a mess. I roll over and watch him sleeping next to me. He used to look young when he slept, like the young boy his father tucked in at night. Grief changes you.

I gently ease myself out of bed, careful not to wake him. I take the waste bin from the bathroom and sit on my knees, placing the feathers in the garbage one by one. I work outward in a circle, cleaning silently until I hear his gravelly morning voice drift from the bed.

"What are you doing?" he mumbles, sleep still heavy in his mouth.

"I thought you'd like it better if things were cleaned up," I answer. Peeta before the hijacking was neat. Peeta after the hijacking finds messes extraordinarily stressful. His anxiety piques if even small items are out of place. It wasn't so bad in Thirteen. Gale was nearly mechanical in his cleanliness and the rest of Thirteen believed that messes were too wasteful. I'm shocked cabins weren't inspected. Maybe they were.

"I thought you liked _living in disarray_ ," Peeta says softly, not moving from the bed but watching me pensively. It's a joke. Prim used to say that about me because she was just as neat as Peeta, and I'm a force to be reckoned with.

"I do," I answer. Normally Peeta's neat freak tendencies drive me up a wall. "But I could use some predictability right now." I find comfort in Peeta's orderly home. Everything is where I expect it to be. There are no surprises. I need no surprises right now. I need stability.

Peeta sits up, stretching. He rubs his leg and I realize he slept with his prosthetic on. Guilt trickles over me. He was such a mess last night. I should have noticed. I should have made him take it off.

"I was hoping we could go see Effie today," Peeta offers, stepping out of bed and finding some pants. He limps just slightly. I pretend not to notice. "And Haymitch."

At Haymitch's name I recoil just slightly. I have no right to it, but I'm angry at him. He lied to us. Again. He lied to us the whole time. He was playing every side – our Mentor, the Rebellion, the Nationless. I don't know where his alliance lies.

"Okay," I grumble, walking back to the bathroom and setting the waste bin back in its place. I brush the knots from my hair as Peeta heads downstairs. I take a quick shower and hurry my way out. The hot water reminds me of burning alive. It reminds me of Prim. I try not to seize as I let it flow over me, running off my skin and sending suds of soap down the drain. I dry off quickly and head downstairs.

"This might be easier on your stomach than all that rich food from yesterday," Peeta offers, sliding a warm piece of bread with melted butter across the counter toward me. I take it off the plate. It's full of grains and nuts. I take a bite and chew it thoughtfully. Peeta tries not to hover, pouring himself a glass of water but keeping his eyes on me. "How do you feel?" he finally asks. "Sick?"

"No, it's good. Settling," I answer. Relief washes over Peeta's face.

"Good," he smiles. Normally we are in the kitchen in the morning sun, but it's already well into the afternoon and the room looks different in the warmer, brighter light. I finish my bread while he heads out of the room to go change. "Katniss?" I hear from behind me. In the door, Peeta is holding my bag that has taken up residence in the front hall. "Should I… um… should I bring this upstairs?" he asks.

"No," I say too quickly. Peeta tries to play it calmly.

"You going somewhere?" he asks playfully, but I can feel the hint of doubt he's trying to cover.

"No," I say again, although it doesn't seem to pacify him any.

"Then why not –"

"Because I said so, Peeta!" I cut him off. "I just… leave it where it is. I just want you to leave my bag there. I don't want it upstairs. I don't want it unpacked. I just want it to stay right there." I ramble. He looks frustrated. I roll my eyes. "Why does everything have to be such a big deal to you? I'm here, aren't I?" My words are hurried and chaotic.

"Are you?" he asks.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I shoot back.

"Are you here? For good? Are you staying?" he asks, not mincing a single word.

"Are we really doing this again?" I ask, although I know that's not fair. We don't talk about this. We don't ever talk about it. Maybe that one fight in 3, where we were drenched in rain and he walked away from me. I haven't given him a single reason to trust me that I didn't immediately shatter within days, weeks, months.

"That's not an answer," he says, and I stare at him. A pit opens in my stomach and it feels like I might collapse in on myself. It makes the blood in my arms ache. I'm terrified of what comes next, but we promised no more lies.

"I'm not going anywhere!" The words are what he wants to hear, but I'm so mad I turn around and stomp up the stairs. I hear Peeta linger downstairs for a while, but eventually he leaves. I look out the window and see him taking the path to Haymitch's house. I waste about an hour before I finally cross the yard and knock on Haymitch's door.

"Well look what the cat dragged in," Haymitch says through a mouth full of food. I am so angry at him, so bitterly resentful, but in this moment, standing in front of him... Both of us home. Both of us safe. I throw my arms around his body and squeeze him as hard as I can. "Hey sweetheart," he whispers, wrapping what he can move of his lower arms around me. We don't hug. We aren't hugging people. It's awkward, but we just hold each other.

"I'm still mad at you," I whisper.

"I'm still mad at you, too," he whispers back.

We let go and awkwardly brush ourselves off, avoiding eye contact.

"Katniss!" I hear Effie trill from the kitchen and she comes prancing forward as if she hadn't just seen me a couple days ago. "Let me get a look at you!" She clenches my hands like a vice and send a critical gazee up and down my body. "Too skinny," she clicks disapprovingly. "And your hair is a mess. Really, dear, you need to keep up with trimming it while it grows out or it's going to look unpresentable. I know I have a balm in one of my bags that might help with these frayed ends. Let me look!" She clicks away and up the stairs, off in search of whatever ointment or treatment she thinks I need now.

I look around. The house is neat. Too neat. I look suspiciously at Haymitch, but he shrugs. "Don't think I did it," he rambles. I spy Peeta sitting on a chair in the living room. I wave uncomfortably, he waves back.

I'm not really sure how to do this. Visit. We all sit in the living room and make small talk.

"So Effie, when are you headed back to the Capitol?" I ask, sipping some tea that I let oversteep as I bounced the bag in my cup, looking for something to occupy my fidgeting hands.

"I plan to leave the Saturday after next," she says with a clipped coolness, but Haymitch's reaction is not lost on either Peeta or me. He stares intensely at his tea cup, which Effie has insisted he serves on a saucer. His hands rattle and he sets the whole contraption on the coffee table. "There is still some oversight needed at the interim Justice Building," she explains.

The interim Justice Building is basically a shed, based on Peeta's explanation to me. One of the women from town, Gerty, has assumed responsibility for all the new forms we keep getting from the Capitol. If and when we start doing government business, she is ready for it. I barely remember Gerty from before the war. She is one of the few surviving townspeople – blonde, blue-eyed, gentle voice. Most everyone else is from the Seam. Peeta blames himself. He thinks Snow was targeting the bakery. I agree, but I think he hurt Peeta to hurt me. I think his family's death lies squarely on my shoulders. I try to shake the thought from my head.

The rest of the visit is casual. We spend a couple hours talking. Eventually we make our way outdoors and sit on Haymitch's porch.

"I'm thinking about ducks," Haymitch says, gesturing to a patch of yard with his hands.

"To eat?" I ask. I've never really understood domesticating animals. I'm not opposed to eating them, but to me there's something weird about caring for something from infancy and then having it occupy your dinner plate. I'd much rather shoot a deer or trap a rabbit. At least they are strangers to me. They don't have names.

"Yeah, to eat. Plus I'd get eggs," he answers. "Maybe geese. They'd keep the idiots off my property, too."

I can't picture Haymitch raising an animal. I can't picture him nurturing anything.

Peeta makes dinner. We eat. Effie retires to bed. I can't remember ever having an easygoing day before.

I'm bored.

It's kind of nice being bored.

In the dark, without Effie's constant oversight, we light a lamp over the kitchen table and play cards. Peeta finds some nuts in Haymitch's cupboard. He melts butter on the stove, tosses them in cinnamon and pepper and lets them roast in the oven for a few minutes. Haymitch complains about the heat of the stove on a summer's night, but ends up gobbling down most of the snack himself.

The boys take down the chessboard. I go to the living room and flip through one of Effie's magazines before I eventually let my eyes drop closed. The warm night lulls me with chirping frogs and buzzing beetles.

The whispers fall low. They assume I'm asleep.

"Because she thinks she might have to run," Haymitch replies, his voice rusty with age.

"That's what I thought," Peeta said, sounding somewhat broken.

"Not from you, kid. The world hasn't let her settle in anywhere. Not since the Reaping. She's not convinced she's safe yet. She's not sure you'll still be in that house a week from now. It might burn down or blow up or collapse on top of her," Haymitch explains. I hate him for knowing me, for knowing things I can't even articulate but are absolutely right. "What's in the bag that she's trying to protect?"

The pearl. The spile. Bits of Peeta I held on to after I lost him. Artifacts from my family that make me feel close to my dad. My sister. Pieces I'm not willing to give up.

"I'm guessing it's the only stuff in the world it might hurt to lose. She's never been a material-type of girl," Haymitch says, gesticulating with his eyes toward Effie's room in a way that makes Peeta laugh a little.

"Let it go?" Peeta asks with some vulnerability in his voice.

"Let it go," Haymitch answers.

When Peeta wakes me up and tells me it's time to go home, I blearily rise from the couch. It's late. It's very late. I don't even say good night to Haymitch as I stumble out the door. We walk across the yard.

"Are we okay?" Peeta asks. I nod. He holds the front door open for me and as I cross the threshold, the offending bag stares us both right in the face. I reach down and grab the handle, lifting the bag and continuing up the stairs toward the bedroom. "Katniss, you don't have to do that," Peeta offers, trailing behind me.

"I know," I say, tossing the bag on the bed and unhooking the clips that hold it shut. I had planned on putting these things in a drawer, but when I hold the spile in my hands, I don't want to hide it away. I walk over to the window and set it on the sill. The shiny, silver metal catches the moonlight and for a moment it looks almost pretty. "How much do you remember about the Quell?" I ask, my voice low.

"Bits and pieces," Peeta replies. "It's like… like I'm watching the whole thing from underwater. I can't focus. I get a moment of clarity, but then you come into the picture and I lose it all again."

"Do you remember losing Mags?" I ask softly. We don't normally talk about what he's lost.

"Not how it happened, no. I remember you shoving her into the fog," Peeta says. I shoot a look up at him. "I know it's not true," he replies quickly. "It's shiny. But that's what I remember about it. And that her body twisted and contorted and…" he loses his voice. "Are you thinking about Mags?"

"I'm thinking about Finnick," I answer. "And bed. Let's get to sleep."

We brush our teeth. Too many more nights of this and we'll have a routine. I want a routine. Peeta slides off his leg and we drop into bed.

"I remember kissing you," Peeta says into the dark. "You tasted like salt and sand. You normally taste like pine and mint, and so I remember it was different. The picture of it in my head is a mess, but I remember thinking it was the last time that I'd kiss you like that. It's how I knew something about the hijacking wasn't right. Why would I know what you tasted like?"

I don't know how to answer him. Instead, we let the night win. We sleep.


	4. Chapter 4 - A Vacancy

I spend the next couple weeks holed up in the house. I vacillate somewhere between grief and habit. Peeta is there. Not always in a closet with me, but outside the door. Giving me space and time to hurt, but making sure I'm not alone. One early morning he finds me sitting in the bathtub in my pajamas, head resting on the edge.

"I have someone that wants to talk to you," Peeta says gently. "But you're going to have to get out of this tub." I look at him quizzically. He probably called my mom. She's been working in a hospital in 4. I don't really want to talk to her right now, but I acquiesce. I pull myself out of the bathtub and drag my feet down the hall toward the office. The phone is sitting on the desk, off the hook. I pick it up.

"Hello?" I say into the receiver. It makes my chest clench a little. Most of my phone calls were with Cinna. But I know his soft-spoken voice won't float over the air to me, letting me know things will be okay.

"It's been two weeks and you haven't called me one time, Katniss Everdeen. I'm offended," Finnick says. I can practically hear him flirt-pouting through the receiver. I crack a smile and Peeta closes the door.

"You haven't called me either," I respond.

"I have an adorable eight-pound excuse. You don't," he teases back.

We talk for a long time. I can hear Annie in the background. _Tell her about when Jo did this_ or _remind Katniss to send us that_. Eventually, though, we get to how things have been here. That I haven't been out. That I refuse to go to town or the woods. That I mostly just spend my days lost in my head.

"You need to get out of the house. Be a part of the world again," Finnick insists.

"I hate the world," I answer. Finnick is quiet for a moment.

"A ship is safe in a harbor, Katniss. But it's not what it was meant to do."

Finnick's words resonate in my head. I don't sleep that night, I just hear his voice over and over. I roll over and watch Peeta. He sleeps on his stomach most nights, on top of the covers. A light breeze moves through the room from the small crack in the window.

"I'm going to go hunting," I say the next morning over breakfast.

"Really?" Peeta asks, more excited than he means to be. I haven't shown much interest in doing anything. I've gone along with some things. Mostly I just sit quietly though, staring out the window or pretending to read a book, but really just blurring my eyes and letting the day slip away. "Let me pack you a bag," he offers. I go upstairs and change. I pull on a light, long sleeve shirt. My pants hang off me and my belt is useless. I realize my hunting bag is in the old house. I thud downstairs.

"Peeta!" I call out. He comes out of the kitchen, looking up at me expectantly.

"My hunting bag is next door. It's in the closet in the front hall," I state. He knows without me having to ask.

"I'll be right back," he says before he disappears out the front door. I look to the kitchen. A deconstructed sandwich lays on the counter. I finish putting it together and stuff it in a small paper bag, along with an apple from the fruit basket on the counter. I find a metal bottle under the sink and fill it with cold water from the tap. I sit on the stool and wait impatiently. Peeta should be back by now. I can't let the morning escape. Dawn is premiere hunting time. I tap my foot, trying to pacify the panic but only fostering it. When the front door opens I snap.

"Finally! What took so long?" I ask, stomping to the door. I stop dead in my tracks. Peeta has a guest.

"He was just sitting in the kitchen meowing at me. I couldn't leave him there but he really didn't want to come along," Peeta explains. "He took half the skin off my arm before agreeing to let me take him."

"How did he…" I start, but I lose my words. Buttercup. That mangy cat must have been locked out of 13 after Prim didn't come back. "Did he walk here?" I ask. He must have. Peeta's talked to everyone since he's been back. Someone would have mentioned having him.

The feline looks up at me with a disappointed glare. He blinks, clearly not thrilled to be here. A maelstrom of emotions swirls in my chest. I'm disappointed too. This cat is an ugly, useless surrogate. If anything, I feel angry.

Peeta goes to the kitchen and fills a bowl with milk before setting it on the ground.

"Cats aren't supposed to have milk," I state. Peeta pauses and takes me in.

"I thought you hated that cat," he responds, a half smirk sitting on his lips.

"I thought you didn't remember anything," I retort. It's a low blow. It's mean. Buttercup hisses at me, as if sensing the hostility.

"Prim told me," he answers quietly, picking the bowl up and putting it in the sink.

Guilt percolates insatiably in my stomach. "I'm sorry, I – " I try to apologize, but Peeta just dismisses it.

"It's fine," he insists, not turning around.

"We said not to lie to each," I say with a slight tease in my voice, but it doesn't seem to win me any ground.

"I haven't lied to you in as long as I can remember," he breathes, but behind his words sit an accusation. He's not putting it there, I am. I can't say the same. We both know it's my lies that are responsible for the cavernous hole between us. Ever since I learned how Prim died, why Prim _really_ died, I lied. Everything that came out of my mouth. The vote. The assassination. I expected to die. I didn't expect to have to live with the consequences.

"Thank you," I state. For not lying. For being here. "For getting my bag," I finally add. I reach inside and find my hunting knife. I slide the leather belt from my waist and lay it on the wooden chopping block before stabbing a hole in it with the tip of the blade. I twist and gauge the wound until I'm satisfied, then I sling the belt through my pants until it cinches tight around my hips. I push the buckle through the newly poked hole. I fold the knife and toss it back in the bag, along with my lunch and the bottle of water.

Without anything more I'm out the door and heading into the woods.

The sun is bright and I'm grateful for the shade of the trees as the timber gets thicker. The insects are unforgiving. I find the clove oil Prim stuffed in my bag and run it over my exposed skin. It seems to help some. I don't make it more than a half mile before I'm panting and need to rest. My legs burn and beg me to stop, but for the first time in a long time I feel alive. I make my way to the stump with my father's bow and sling it over my shoulder.

Along the ground, ferns have spread their eager leaves and happily soak up the summer air. The paths Gale and I burrowed in this forest seem to have faded, and for a while I shuffle my feet in the dead leaves and try to expose the route again. When I reach our meeting spot a lump forms in my throat and I feel like I might drown in my spit. I force myself forward through, ever forward, until I take my seat.

I wait.

I wait for what I know will never come.

Peace.

I move on, spying the trail of a deer and tracking it silently through the forest. I'm panting with the effort but I keep my breathing shallow and quiet. My chest burns from lack of use, my muscles ache with inactivity. I spy the deer eating a clump of grass. Summer has been generous, and her calves are wide and muscular. Her long eyelashes flutter as she reaches down again, her lips slightly pulled back.

I raise my bow to the doe, but the snap of a twig behind me sends me spinning around, pointing the arrow to my assailant's chest.

"Woah!" Rory Hawthorne yells, throwing his hands in the air. In his right hand he holds a makeshift bow. A rabbit is strung over his shoulder, the slip knot from its snare still wrapped around its foot. It's not tied well.

"Sorry! I thought you were… Sorry," I mumble, dropping my bow, steadying the panic in my pulse. I turn back but the doe has already skipped into the woods, startled by the noise.

"Dammit," I mutter, kicking the dirt. Rory just watches me. I eye his bow. It's not bad, but it's not good. The string is too tight. His brother was never much good at these either. "Here, let me see that," I offer, reaching out an open hand. Rory hands over the bow and watches me carefully as I pull the string, unknot and retie the end, pull again. "String's too tight. This should help. Also… the limb is too short. You've grown since you made that. You need a new one."

"Thanks," he says almost graciously, but he buries any gratitude that creeps into his voice.

"How long have you been coming out here?" I ask.

"Since we got home. Gale took me out a few times without you, but that all stopped when Thread showed up," Rory answers.

"He was protective of you kids. I'm shocked he took you out at all," I say as I slide my arrow back into the quiver.

"I'm not a kid, Katniss. I'm almost fifteen," Rory protests, angry at the perceived criticism of his brother.

"Only kids have to insist they aren't kids," I retort. I don't know why I'm being argumentative. I can't help it. Gale and I argued all the time too. I'm tired. I'm still reeling from this morning.

"Gale always treated me like a man," he spits out.

"Gale coddled you. Just like I coddled Prim. It's what you do with children, Rory," I shoot back. I can't control my tongue. Not when I've had so little sleep. Not when my emotions are still so raw. I swallow but my throat is dry. _Just shut up, Katniss_.

"If I'm some child then why didn't you come for me? You didn't even come home after the war! Instead, you had to stay in the Capitol on some self-sanctimonious mission like you think you are the savior of everybody. Well we needed you, Katniss! And not in the Capitol trying to kill Coin. We needed you here! My mom needed you! Posy needed you!" His chest is heaving. "And now that you are home, you don't even come around. You made a promise that you'd take care of each other's families. When you were reaped Gale held up his end of the bargain, but when it came to be your turn you didn't come even home."

"Rory, I –"

"It's like you don't even care that Gale's dead! You aren't even mourning him!" Rory yells at me, the hurt and accusation heavy in his voice.

"Because I don't know how to mourn him!" I yell back.

"Why? Because you were in love with him? Because you feel guilty? Because you know he'd follow you anywhere and you lead him right into a war zone? Because you lead him right to his death? Because he did nothing but love you and you did nothing but hurt him?" Rory pushes every button his brother knew to push. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows how to make the storm in me rage. How to force my guard down. "Because you managed to save everyone else _except_ the two people who mattered most? Because you let him die?"

"Because he killed my sister!" I scream. I gasp and throw my hand over my mouth.

"He what?" Rory asks, his voice cold and low. I shake my head furiously, but he steps toward me. No no no no. "What did you say, Katniss?" I want to take it back. I want to eat my words and crawl up in a ball and blow away like the dead leaves caught in a summer breeze, but my body seizes and the pain overwhelms me.

"Because he killed Prim," I sob. Rory starts shaking, falling backward on his feet.

"No," he whispers. "He wouldn't do that. Gale wouldn't do that."

"He didn't mean to. He…" I take a breath. Rory shouldn't have to know this. I shouldn't tarnish his big brother for him. But it's already out there and I can't undo what has been done. "He designed the bomb. The two-phase bomb that killed Prim. The bomb meant to hurt innocents to lure others in. The second explosion, delayed long enough to let..." I can't say anymore.

Rory looks like he's going to throw up. His skin is green.

"I'm sorry, Rory. I'm sorry. He didn't know she'd use it. Gale didn't know Prim would be there. She was a child, she should have never been in a battlefield. But Coin used the bomb. And Coin sent Prim out there on purpose. Gale couldn't have known she would do that. Coin did this. Coin is the reason they're dead," I ramble.

"And so you tried to kill her," Rory whispers.

"Yes. And so I tried to kill her," I affirm.

"Because she killed Prim," he says.

"Yes. Because she killed Prim. Because she killed Gale," I answer. I don't know what else to say. "And… I am angry at Gale. I am _so_ angry at Gale. And I don't know how to be angry at someone that I miss so much. He's supposed to be my best friend and instead he's gone and so is my sister and I am just so angry, Rory. I am furious at him. I don't know _how_ to mourn him. It doesn't mean I don't, I just don't know how," I say, but before I can get out any more excuses Rory steps forward and wraps me in his arms.

"You mourn him with me," Rory whispers into my hair. He's not as tall as Gale was, not yet. But everything else about him feels so much like my best friend that I just let go. I cry into his shoulder, soaking his shirt, and he holds me so still. Not rocking, not moving. Just there. I cling to him, wishing he were his brother, and he clings to me, wishing I was my sister. Neither of us get what we want, but we both get what we need.

"Hey," he starts in a soothing voice, low and resonant in his chest.

"Yeah?" I reply, not lifting my head, not moving at all.

"I'm gonna call you Catnip from now on, okay?" he asks.

"Okay," I whisper back. We stay for a long time before we finally let go. I wipe my cheeks and so does he, his face flushed with fresh grief.

"I'm gonna go home," he says.

"Okay," I respond, but as he turns to walk away I call out. "Rory?"

"Yeah?" he asks, turning back to me.

"He died trying to save her. When he realized what was happening, he could have run the other way. Instead he leapt in there, knowing he wasn't going to make it out. He died trying to save her. And as much as I hate him right now, I will never stop loving him for that," I say.

"He tried to save her?" Rory asks, and in this moment he looks so much like the little boy I remember him as before this war took away all of our innocence.

"Yeah. She screamed at him, too. Kicked him in the gut," I laugh through my tears.

"She would do that," Rory laughs back, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

"He was a hero. That's how you should remember him," I say.

"That's how you should remember him too," Rory says, kicking a rock and making his way back down the summer-worn path. He stops. "You coming?" he calls back over his shoulder.

A smile creeps across my face.

"Yeah, I'm coming," I say, jogging to catch up.

We stop at Gale and my meeting spot and I show Rory how to skin the rabbit. "You can sell the fur," I insist. I start and then hand the carcass over, pointing out what he needs to do. He smiles when he pulls the pelt off almost entirely intact. We talk about home. We split my sandwich. He cuts the apple with a knife and offers me some cheese from his pack. In this moment Gale is so here yet so absent. I can't tell if it makes it worse or better.

Rory walks me all the way home. He pretends not to notice when I need a break by feigning interest in some novelty leaf or a piece of bark that's grown over a wounded tree trunk. When we finally reach my house, something feels settled. Like the world is falling into place. Like I got a little of Gale back today. A little of Prim.

"Thanks for walking me home, Rory," I say before turning to enter the house.

"I could use a big sister," he tells my back, his words hanging between us. I turn around and meet his gaze. "I hear you have a vacancy." It's sick and awful, but it's us and we both just laugh because it hurts too much to do anything else anymore.

"I could use a little brother," I answer back.

"Same time tomorrow?" he asks.

"Yeah," I respond.

"See you at the meeting spot, Catnip," Rory says before jumping the steps hastily and making his way back down the dirt path out of Victor's Village and toward town.


	5. Chapter 5 - Work

I send Rory home with most everything we catch in the woods. I should visit the Hawthornes, but I don't. It's still too raw and I'm worried I will say something I regret. They don't need to know what Gale did, although in some way I think it's helping Rory.

Peeta bakes all morning and spends the afternoon delivering his goods to the workers in town. He'll spend a few hours helping with the clean-up effort before trudging home filthy and exhausted. At night we make dinner together, eat together. We watch television or read. We talk about meaningless things – what I saw in the woods, gossip Peeta heard in town. We brush our teeth and sleep, keeping to our own sides of the bed like some invisible border divides us. In the context of sleep, though, our hands and legs wander, and we usually wake wrapped together. In the morning we pretend to be asleep just to delay the inevitable breaking apart.

This morning is just that. I've been awake for at least an hour. I know Peeta has, too. But we both lay here – motionless, drowsy, soaking in the only peace either of us has felt in a long time. Finally I stretch out my body and Peeta opens his eyes, pulling himself away and taking me in. I roll over on my side until we're both facing each other.

"Hey," he offers in his morning voice.

"Morning," I reply, still quiet. Still wishing the day away. We wait a moment, but it's Peeta who pulls away first.

"I have to get baking," he says, forcing himself up and reaching under the bed for his leg.

"Can I come into town with you today?" I ask his back. He twists and looks at me.

"Yeah," he says with a smile. "You gonna help me bake, too?"

"Fat chance," I answer, dropping back into the bed. He leans forward for a moment like he's going to drop back into bed and wrap himself around me, but he hesitates.

"You can't blame me for trying," he says instead, standing up and throwing on some clothes before heading downstairs. I listen to him in the kitchen, clanging and banging around. It's not that he's clumsy, but it's impossible to be quiet with the mixer running and the metal pans set on metal racks. The smell of lemon creeps upstairs and I force myself out of bed, following my nose into the hall and down the stairs.

"Where did you get lemons?" I ask, eyes wide. We both love citrus fruits, but we never eat them at home. It's a delicacy saved for our time in the Capitol, an exchange made for being reaped or shot at. Here, though, it feels indulgent. No one in town can afford lemons and therefore we forbid them. My tongue salivates just smells the tart, sweet scent.

"I ordered them. They cost an arm and a leg, but…"

"You don't have a leg to give," I say. Peeta stops and looks up at me.

"Did you just make a joke?" he asks.

"No," I say, my cheeks burning. I have no idea where that came from. Peeta grins widely.

"It was funny," he says.

"It wasn't funny," I say back.

"Okay," he says, his tone marked with playful disbelief. "I just really wanted the folks down at the clean-up site to try them. My dad used to make lemon squares every Midsummer." We haven't celebrated Midsummer in years. The last Midsummer I remember I was nine or ten. It normally takes place shortly after the Games. People make food and put it out in front of their house to share. Those who can't afford food clean or make trinkets. Midsummer is one of the few nights a year where no one goes hungry. Sometimes there is music. One year there was a parade with the kids from school. It almost felt like we were celebrating being spared another year. During Midsummer, the families of the fallen tributes are normally overwhelmed with gifts and food and clothes. Anything to dull the pain. Midsummer stopped after a decree from the Capitol that it interfered with the mine schedule, even though it was always on a Sunday.

I notice Peeta's gotten quiet. I watch him as he stares at the batter pensively, his father's absence so potent in this moment that he can't find his way out. I stick my finger in the bowl. He blinks and shoots a look up at me.

"Katniss!"

"What?" I smile, sucking the batter from my finger. Peeta gets lost in a whole other type of staring. My shirt is loose around my body, the morning sun brightly shining in the kitchen makes the fabric nearly translucent. My hair is tussled and messy. I lick the remaining bits of sugar from my bottom lip. Peeta drops the wooden spoon from his hand and it goes bouncing to the floor.

"Shoot," he curses, spinning around and going for the spoon. By the time he turns back I'm headed upstairs to shower. I feel his eyes all over me as I tread up the stairs.

That afternoon we deliver all his goods. The village is much like he described. The old Town and most of the Seam is decimated. The first thing that was done was the removal of bodies. A mass grave was dug at the far end of the cemetery, slipping its border into much of the meadow. I don't know how anyone could do that work, but no one wanted those we loved left unburied. I'm grateful.

Now the cleanup effort is focused on clearing the rubble and demolishing what's left standing. We need clean earth to rebuild. Away from the work zone sits a flurry of temporary houses. They are wooden and fairly solid, but they won't make it through the winter. We have a lot of work ahead of us and very little time to do it.

My face burns. I've been so selfish, holed up in the house when there is an insurmountable amount of work to do here. Children without homes, families with no place to grow. I spy one of the work crews clearing the remains of what was once a shoe shop. We lost the cobbler and her husband to the flames. We won't likely have another shoe shop. Trades were passed down from generation to generation. Her secrets were silenced forever in the bombing.

"Can I help?" I ask. The man who appears to be in charge turns around to find the owner of the voice barely loud enough to be heard over the hurling of stone and metal and dirt.

"Katniss," he says, a smile brightly spreading across his lips.

"Thom!" I answer back brightly. I hardly recognized him under the layer of dust and dirt and sweat.

"Yeah, um, we're loading this here into that truck," he answers, pointing to a construction vehicle positioned at the edge of the site.

"Okay," I answer. We don't make small talk. Seeing each other is enough. I lean down and grab a chunk of cement with an iron rod curling away from it. It reminds me of a worm making its way into an apple. I grunt as I stand and walk the few yards to the truck before heaving my load into the bed. Peeta jumps in beside me. He doesn't need to ask. He does this every day.

We spend the next few hours working. Eventually we take a break and sit on some of the larger rocks while Peeta hands out the lemon squares. They look pristine and delicate in the grimy, blackened hands of the crew. I study my jagged, broken finger nails, caked with murky dirt. The lemon square looks like it belongs in another world. All thoughts stop, though, when the sweet yet tart treat melts on my tongue. Most of these people have never had lemon before. The crew is reduced to smiles and smacking lips.

It's only when they are quieted by confection that I begin to feel the staring. I look over and find two men propped against a wall, taking refuge in the shade. When I make eye contact they turn away, continuing their conversation between the two of them. They aren't from here. I know the folks from 12. Their gray uniforms and cropped hair give them away. They're from 13.

"What are you looking at?" Peeta asks softly, following my gaze.

"They were staring," I say under my breath, and for a moment I'm back in the Games. Confiding in Peeta, doubting my allies.

"Well, you are kind of a celebrity, you know," Peeta offers, but I can tell he's not committed to this line. He keeps watching the men.

"Did they stare at you when you first showed up?" I ask.

"No," Peeta says with a mark of darkness in his voice. Even when we resume work, his periphery remains fixed on the men who seem to have dropped all interest in me and continue on with the labor at hand. I let it go.

People come and go at will, but there's always at least a dozen people at our site. When Rye shows up and starts lugging debris toward the truck, everyone pats him on the back with a familiar hello.

"Hey Rye," I say awkwardly. He turns and gives me a friendly smile.

"Hey Katniss," he returns as though he hasn't been avoiding me. As though the last time we saw each other I didn't draw a knife on him. As if he doesn't live dozens of yards away and yet never comes over.

Maybe that's all on me.

"You should come to dinner this week. And Delly," I offer ineptly. I'm not good at social pleasantries.

"We would love that," Rye replies. I see Peeta over his shoulder beaming. I remember what Cinna said. _When you're being selfish, change it._ Okay. One thing down.

As Peeta and I walk the path back to the Village that evening, guilt begins to permeate in my mood.

"Why don't some of the families move up here? There's at least a dozen vacant houses in Victor's Village," I ask.

"Haymitch offered but no one took him up on it. I don't think they feel like they earned their place up here," Peeta speculates. He's right. He knows how Seam folk think.

Inside I plop unceremoniously on the couch. I know I'm probably covering it with dirt, but I don't care. My muscles ache and whine with complaint.

"Water?" he asks. I nod and gulp the drink greedily.

Most nights we'd make dinner now, but we're back a lot later than normal. I didn't know when to stop. It was only when Thom kicked me out of the site that we finally came back home. Peeta takes the seat next to me on the couch. I watch him with heavy eyelids.

"If I kiss you, is that okay?" Peeta asks.

"Yeah, that's okay," I whisper. We're both sort of awkward about it. He leans over the couch. He doesn't kiss me right away. He slides his hand over my cheek.

"Is it weird that I like you covered in sweat and dirt? It kind of reminds me of our first kiss," he murmurs on my lips. His eyes shoot open abruptly.

"What?" I ask, concern all over my face.

"I remember our first kiss," Peeta smiles. "I just… I haven't had a real memory of that before." He has a glossy look over his eyes, like he's lost in a happy memory. So few of our memories are happy, I leave him there. I rest my head on the back of the couch and doze off.


	6. Chapter 6 - Dinner

I put food down for him but the stupid cat doesn't come. "Buttercup!" I yell out, but that flea-infested knot of fur is nowhere to be found. "Buttercup!" I call out again, but this time my heart starts pounding in my chest. Where is he? Prim would never forgive me if I let that cat die. He's run away before. He goes out hunting and doesn't come back for days. He sleeps at my old house and Peeta has to constantly go over and bring him back. _Don't make me do this._

I stomp with exacerbation across the lawn and toward my house. My heart leaps into my throat, but this hideous, hateful cat is all I have left of my sister, and I'll take care of him whether either of us like it or not. I slam my way up the stairs and stop at Prim's room. I send the door flying open and find the cat curled up on her bed, sleeping.

I had to expect it, but the potency of Prim in this space is suffocating. I'm surrounded by her. Her blue hair ribbon still rests over the mirror at her desk. On her dresser top sit trinkets and pretty things – a gold button lost from its mates, a pretty white rock, a dried up dandelion.

"She's not here!" I scream at the cat. He glares at me and I yell at him again. "She's not here! She's never coming back! She's dead, you hear me? She's dead!"

At my words Buttercup starts howling and moaning. I drop to my knees hard on my sister's floor. I feel the bone smack into the hard wood, but I can't stop. "Prim is dead! Prim is gone forever and you are all I've got left of her and I hate you!" I scream at him. Buttercup cries and wails for Prim, as though the louder he is the more she'll come back to him. The more likely she is to save him from this horrible replacement that doesn't love him and never will.

I draw my knees to my chest and sob into my legs. After a while the meowing stops. I feel Buttercup nudge me with his head. I look down at him and see him staring at me. "Stop it!" I whisper viciously, swatting at him. Instead, he purrs and nudges me again, butting his head into my empty hand. I drop my knees to the sides and he crawls into my lap, buzzing like the carburetor on Thom's old tractor. We stay like that for a while, Buttercup purring and nuzzling into me.

"Alright, let's go home," I mutter. He doesn't fight me about it. It's the last time he runs away.

The next day I'm a mess in the kitchen. I have a couple of rabbits I snared with Rory and I'm cooking down the leftover carcasses for broth. It's hot. It's unbearably hot outside and I have no idea why I committed myself to this dish. _Because it's one of only a few things I know how to make_. I've never been particularly domestic. Peeta comes home covered in sweat and filth. He pokes his head into the kitchen.

"No!" I command. "Go shower. I don't even want to see you until I can't smell you first."

"It's not that bad!" Peeta teases, but four hours of manual labor in insufferable heat will make anyone smell like a farmhand.

"Go!" I yell, throwing a dish cloth at him.

Rye and Delly are coming for dinner. Thom called half days on the work site all week, so we figured now is as good a time as any for that evening I offered.

I already prepared a salad of field greens and radishes which is soaking up dressing in the refrigerator. Delly is making dessert. Haymitch is bringing… something. Who knows. I invited Haymitch and Effie so I wouldn't feel like the least refined person at the table. I invited Rory, too. I still haven't talked to Hazelle, but Rory says she's not mad. She's just glad Rory and I are patching things up. I will never be as selfless as that woman. It's why I'm not cut out to be a mother.

Rory comes first, at least an hour early. He's got a plate of cold vegetables and some kind of creamy dip I'm sure Hazelle made. It's much more appealing on a hot day than what I'm concocting.

"Alright, where do you need me?" Rory asks. I hand him an apron but he just laughs. "You wouldn't catch me dead in a dress." It's a dig at Peeta. Instead of being offended, though, I just smirk. It reminds me of his brother.

"Can you get a cast iron from the cupboard and heat it up on the stove? And maybe wash that glass pitcher out?" I point to the top of the refrigerator. Rory gets on his toes and pulls down the jug. He flips it upside down and a dead spider falls to the floor. I groan. "Rory, not on the floor!" I toss the insect in the garbage and return to the rabbit.

"Aren't you going to wash your hands?" Rory asks, one eyebrow perched.

"Oh yeah, I…" I spin around and run my hands under the hot sink water. I'm not cut out for this. What was I thinking?

"Katniss," Rory says.

"What?!" I spin around, splashing him with water.

"Breathe," he says, grabbing my shoulders.

"Yeah, okay," I say, nodding my head. _Breathe._

"Alright, throw me in, Commander," Peeta states as he enters the room. He's in fresh clothes. His hair is still damp from the shower. He takes the two of us in, Rory's hands on my shoulders, a panicked look on my face. "Huh," he says, reaching to the counter and grabbing some dough he let rise in a bowl while he was out.

"What?" I snap. I'm not in the mood for jealousy.

"Just glad to have someone else that speaks Katniss around here," he answers. Rory laughs. I sneer at both of them.

Peeta pounds the dough down with his fist before kneading it a bit and setting it in pan. He slides it in the oven. Between the heat of baking bread, cooking down rabbit carcass, and the unforgivable summer sun, the kitchen is sweltering. I might as well crawl in the oven, it will probably be cooler.

We finish the meal just as Rye and Delly arrive. Delly bubbles over this and that, as if our houses weren't identical. Rye hugs me. I try not to act uncomfortable. Rye and I are friendly, yes, but most of the time we've been together is during mutual worry over Peeta – after his mother's last attack, after the hijacking, after the explosion. Rye and I don't know how to just _be_ around each other.

Haymitch and Effie arrive, Effie with a flourish. Her outfit, mild for Capitol dinner party standards, is extravagantly out of place. It reminds me of when my prep team dressed for dinner on the train like we were attending a feast. Haymitch catches me staring.

"She doesn't do it for her, you know," he grumbles under his breath as he watches Effie flounce around the table, ingratiating herself with each of the guests. "She did that whole get up for you. She wanted you to know how important you are to her. That you are worth the effort."

I stare at Effie. Her make-up is precise, her face perfectly powdered. Not a hair on her wig is out of place. I couldn't save myself from a fire in her spiked shoes. She did all that for me.

"You look lovely, Effie," Peeta praises with a grin as he holds out her seat at the dinner table. Everything always comes so easily to him – a smile, a compliment. I'm dark, broody, argumentative. Dinner doesn't in come in courses. This is a family meal. I set all the food in the middle of the table at once.

"Well, have at it," I offer, finally taking my seat. Rory and I start to dig in, but the others wait. Haymitch reaches for a slice of bread and Effie jabs him in the ribs with her elbow.

"Who would like to say grace?" Delly asks.

"Say what?" I ask. This isn't a Capitol tradition. It's certainly not something we did in the Seam. If we were lucky enough to have dinner we certainly didn't wait to eat.

"Well, why don't I do it?" Delly offers in a sing-songy voice, taking Rye's hand and also Rory's, who was unlucky enough to plop beside her. He looks at me desperately. I shrug and take the hands of the people next to me. Delly closes her eyes. We all follow suit.

"Thank you for this delicious food we are about to receive," Delly says.

"You're welcome?" I grumble, eyes still close.

"Oh, not you silly! Well, you too of course. But I'm thanking the universe. For bringing us together tonight. For letting us be here, together, as friends and family. For this cherished moment when we are all safe and happy and loved," Delly says idyllically.

She goes on. I crack my eyes open. I find Rory, gaping. Haymitch peeks open an eye and we all grin guiltily. You can take the person out of the Seam, but you can't take the Seam out of the person. We share a look of irritation. Only someone who's never been hungry would let food sit. Although, that's not true. Delly has been hungry. She and Rye made it on foot from 12 to 13. What is she getting at?

"Lastly, thank you to Katniss and Peeta for making me feel welcome in their home," Delly concludes. _Their_ home. The words that at one point would make me want get up and run, but I've buried my worse nature. What I _want_ is to stay here.

"Thanks, Delly. That was, um, nice," I answer. Everyone digs into the food.

The evening draws on uneventfully. It's almost... pleasant. Rye and I make conversation. He's actually kind of funny once I finally let my guard down. Delly and Effie are thick as thieves, gossiping and twittering. You'd think Delly was Capitol-born. Haymitch and Rory are off in their own banter, which is interesting since Gale and Haymitch never really clicked. I think there was always some kind of outsider mentality when it came to Gale and the Victors. He and Rory are alike in so many ways – quick to judge, long to forgive. But in just as many ways they are different. Rory is more open. Maybe it's his youth. Maybe it's something of my sister that rubbed off on him. Peeta watches it all with quiet content. I can't remember seeing him this at peace.

"I'll tell you one thing, old man, you won't last five minutes with a gaggle of geese," Rory laughs through a mouthful of blueberries and sweet cream.

"That's what I tell him," Effie chimes in, overlapped with Haymitch grumbling "Who are you calling an old man?"

I clear the table as the laughter starts to die down. Delly immediately shoots to her feet to help, as does Peeta. Between the three of us the kitchen is cleaned in no time. The summer sun has long since left the sky. It's late.

"We should be getting home, Katniss. Thank you again for a lovely dinner!" Delly gushes, hugging me as my arms lay dead at my sides. She takes her ceramic dish from the counter. I watch as they all pour out into the night. I remember when being out after dark meant being shot like game. I close the door.

"That was… nice," Peeta says, hanging a damp dishtowel on the stove to dry.

"Yeah," I say with a small smile on my face. I stretch my weary body. "Next time you are cooking. I'm not meant to be domestic," I complain with some levity.

"I'm not looking for a housewife," he retorts candidly, but the word _wife_ hangs uncomfortably between us. His eyes shoot up. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to–"

"Good," I interrupt. "You'd be sorely disappointed."

Peeta stares at me. I'm not running. For once in our life I'm not running, and he doesn't know what to do with it. He traces me with his eyes before he steps forward and wraps me tight in his arms.

"You're my best friend, you know that?" he whispers into the crook of my neck. His words are hot on my skin.

"I one told you we could never be friends," I answer. I doubt he remembers. I don't remember that well. I was drunk. Very drunk. But I remember the words. _We'll never be friends._ I feel him still as he ponders the thought.

"We'll fight," he whispers, not breaking the embrace. I feel every word on my skin. "And we'll laugh. And you'll hate me and I'll hurt you. And you'll love me until your heart explodes. And we'll kiss and we'll pretend, we'll dance and we'll know each other's secrets. But we'll never be friends."

I forget that the times I hurt him are the most vivid. Some of the only genuine memories he has of us.

"I'm sor–" but before I can get the words out of my mouth his lips are on mine. He swallows the apology. This is not the gentle, delicate kissing we've dared to share. A kiss on my hair to say good night. A kiss on his hand before I leave to hunt. This is insatiable kissing. It's a want so strong between us and we can't find a way to fill the void. Peeta steps forward until we're over the couch. The back of my knees hit the arm and we drop onto the cushions. His weight is heavy on top of me. It's intoxicating and I finally let myself surrender to it. I tug his bottom lip with my teeth and he buries his hands in my hair, tugging at it as he dips his tongue into my mouth and moans at the taste of me.

A groan rumbles in his throat and my body responds with fire shooting through my limbs, tingling and scorching and igniting every inch of my skin. I'm wearing a thin, summer dress. I couldn't bear more than that in the heat. Peeta reaches under the skirt and slides his hands to my undergarments, gliding them down my legs before throwing them on the floor. Neither of us can wait anymore. We're desperate.

I look down and I can see him yearning against his pants. I'm sloppy with his belt and there's a metal jangle before I'm able to rip it open. I fumble with the button of his pants, yank down the zipper. I feel this hand drop between my legs and I whimper as he traces me with his fingers before slipping one inside me. My eyes blur and I try to focus on what I'm doing.

Peeta scoops his arms underneath me as he pulls himself up. He hitches up my skirt and my heart slams inside my chest. His face is barely illuminated from the light in the hall and I watch his expression change and he slides himself into me. I gasp slightly and he stops.

"It's good, it's good, keep going," I breathe, thrusting my hips slightly. He moves again, his breath lost as he moans with each movement inside me. His hands roam my body, pulling me into him. He grazes over my chest and I bite my lip to stifle a sound.

"I like it when you make noise," Peeta whispers as he drops his mouth to my throat. My nipples have hardened and they are sensitive rubbing against the cotton of my dress. Peeta slides his hand up and over one of my breasts and squeezes hard before running his thumb gently over where he feels the peaks of my nipples. I writhe underneath him. "Please," he whispers in my ear and I exhale as I arch my back, pressing my body into his. He continues pumping into me, watching my face carefully. My body drenches in sweat, the dress clinging to my skin. Peeta tugs it up and my skin prickles at the feel of the air.

"Are you okay?" Peeta murmurs.

"Yes," I manage, my stomach whirling when he shifts his hips slightly. Peeta watches my reaction and repeats the motion. He looks radiant. I am radiant. He shudders above me and my body clenches and flutters in response. It's right here. Peeta watches me until I climax, my eyes glue to him until he lets go. Everything is hot and sticky and we're both drenched in sweat. Peeta's head drops to my chest, fighting to stay awake but exhaustion winning him over.

"This was the best night of my life," he whispers softly before the muggy darkness steals him to sleep. I watch as Buttercup finally makes his way down from upstairs, content now all the people are gone. He watches Peeta and me, tangled together on the couch.

"Stop looking at me," I whisper. The cat just blinks.

 **A/N: Hey all, sorry for the delay on this chapter. I had surgery a few days ago (nothing serious, I promise) and it's hard to write on pain killers. I'm on the mend, but please forgive me if the next couple chapters take me a bit. Healing first. Love you all!**


	7. Chapter 7 - An Unexpected Guest

Today is the first day we build something new. Today we start construction on the first new home in District 12. Families have been prioritized based on size, age, and health. The first home is for a young father with four small children. He lost his wife in the siege of the Capitol. He's not sure when or how. He turned around and she was gone. It was as if she had evaporated into the air. Probably a pod, although none of us want to say that. Those of us in the field know.

A special construction crew has been sent in from District 13 to provide guidance for the first few houses we build. We dig a base for a foundation and pour cement. I listen carefully and do as I'm told. We build the bones of the home. By the end of the first day, we are all exhausted.

"That's a wrap for today, folks," Thom announces and it's as though you can hear a unison sigh of relief from the crew. I drop my work belt in a pile with the others, but when I turnaround I don't expect a footfall under my own. I slam hard into the ground, skinning my palms and sending shockwaves through my knees. "What the hell?" I spit out, looking up.

One of the men from 13 stares down at me. He's tall, his shoulders broad and chin pointed. His hair is short and gray around his temples. He has a buddy directly over his shoulder, snickering away. "Oops," he says sarcastically, dropping his belt in the pile and turning away from me, leaving me bleeding on the ground.

"Katniss! Are you okay?" Peeta asks, rushing over. He squats beside me, worry flitting across his pale blue eyes. "Your hands," he says with concern. "What happened?"

"I tripped," I answer. It's not entirely a lie. It's not the whole truth either. Peeta's not stupid. He looks over his shoulder and sees the men walking away from me. It's as though I can feel him bristle like a rabid dog. It's not a reaction Peeta would have had before the hijacking. He'd feel an instinct to protect, but not a bloodthirst to avenge. His eyes remain locked on the men as he pushes himself to his feet with a quiet intensity. "Peeta, no," I say, grabbing the crux of his elbow. "I'm not some helpless girl in need of defending. I can take care of myself," I spit out. I don't like being treated like a victim.

I watch as Peeta tries to calm the fury in his belly. He knows that's not what I need. He takes a deep breath and looks at me. "Okay," he says softly, turning back into the worried boy. "Let's get you cleaned up," he offers and we start the trek toward Victor's Village. As we get closer I see a small crowd outside Haymitch's house. Haymitch and Effie, yes, but I don't recognize the visitor from a distance. A woman. Definitely not Delly. As we grow closer though, I realize the frame is one I know better than almost any.

"Mom?" I say in a small voice, stopped in my tracks only a moment before I take off sprinting toward her. "Mom!" I cry out, and her head turns toward me. By the time she processes it's me I've already thrown myself into her arms. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in Four," I ramble. I realize I'm crying and try to wipe my face, but my hands are raw.

"What is this?" my mom asks, turning my palms toward her.

"Oh it's stupid, it's nothing. I fell at the work site," I blather.

"Mrs. Everdeen!" Peeta says as he wraps her in his arms. He squeezes her so tight I think she might disappear inside his embrace, but the look of relief on her face is prominent.

"Dinner at Haymitch's," Effie insists as Haymitch shoos her inside the house, giving our tiny family some space.

"I need to clean this up," my mom says of my hands and starts toward our house. The house I don't go in. The house that's full of clothes and memories and things I ignore. I hesitate, but then force myself to follow her inside. Peeta takes up the rear. My mother walks to her medicine cabinet, meticulously lining up tweezers, alcohol, and ointment on the table. I sit across from her and lay my hands in her open palms. Her skin is so soft and for a moment I remember her stroking my cheek when I was a little girl. I see a Prim dart across the kitchen giggling and wild, wrapped in a towel and dripping bathwater all over the floor, my mother chasing her with a comb. This place is full of ghosts, but my mother isn't a ghost. Not anymore. She's tangible. Real. Right in front of me.

"There, done. Peeta, dear, will you hand me that gauze?" she points, and Peeta drops the roll in her open hand. "All set," she says and I look down. The bloody mess that was my skin is now sterile white cotton.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" I ask as she cleans up her mess, tossing bloody cotton in the trash, putting the ointment back in the cabinet.

"I wanted to see you," she says softly. "They wouldn't let me come earlier. There were still so many war veterans in serious condition at the hospital, but eventually they had to," my mother answers. She looks around her, letting her surroundings final sink in. Her hands shake and she hides it with busy work at the sink. "I should have called. I just… Katniss, I'm so sorry. I –" she tries holding it together, but this is the first time we've truly been together since losing Prim, aside from a few short words when she snuck into my hospital room. Her resolve breaks like a dam giving way to a forceful current. She wraps me in her arms and I can feel her body tremor as the grief overtakes her. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

I hold my mother with my gauze-wrapped hands until she finally calms down.

"Do you want to go somewhere else? Being in the house is… rough," I say.

"No, I want to be here. I've been so far away. I just want to be home for a little while. Somewhere that reminds me of her," my mom answers, shaking out her hands and running her fingers under her eyes. I don't know what to make of it. My mother isn't brave like this. She recoils and hides from things that hurt. She loses time. But my mother isn't the same woman she was when my dad died, when I got reaped. She's the woman who stood toe-to-toe with Mrs. Mellark and told her off. Who snuck into Coin's hospital room and slipped air into her IV. I always assumed I got my courage from my father, but I've never given my mother acknowledgement. How brave she must have been to walk away from her family and live in poverty in the Seam. How her jaw sets, her eyes temper when she's healing an injured or sick person. I've never given her the credit she deserves. I let a grudge linger in my stomach like poison instead.

"Why don't we get ready for dinner?" she says, taking her bag and heading upstairs.

"Are you okay?" Peeta asks when she's out of earshot.

"Yeah, it will heal in a few days. I just need to keep my hands clean," I say dismissively, although I know that's not what he's asking about.

"You're in your head," he says gently. He's right. I don't even remember her cleaning my hands. I don't know what was said between our hug and heading to her room. "Kat," he starts, but I walk past him and toward the stairs.

"I'm going to shower before dinner. Should I just meet you at Haymitch's?" I tell more than ask.

"I can stay if you want." Peeta looks at me, confusion evident in his eyes. "Um, yeah. Okay. I'll meet you at Haymitch's."

I finish walking up the stairs before Peeta finally leaves. I step into my room. It looks like I remember it. Everything around this house has changed, transformed, burned, rebuilt, but the house has remained unmoved thought it all. It's like a time capsule. In my bathroom I take a comb from the drawer and unknot my hair before showering. I find some pants and a light shirt in the dresser. I braid my hair wet and head back downstairs. My mother is fretting about the kitchen.

"There's nothing in the cabinets. We shouldn't show up emptyhanded," she says.

"It's fine. Haymitch is always emptyhanded when he comes to our house," I answer. "Emptyhanded, empty-bellied…"She doesn't laugh. "Empty-minded…" I add under my breath. My mother looks at me unsatisfied. "Wait here," I say and scoot out the front door. I walk around to the back of the house where a patch of fire orange tiger lilies have taken over the rear wall. I cut a handful with my pocket knife and bring them back inside. My mother seems gratified, throwing them in a vase with water.

When we arrive at Haymitch's I'm awkward. Everyone knows my mom, but no one really _knows_ my mom. Delly and Rye arrive. Rye and my mom hug. I watch it happen like a bystander gawking at an accident. Delly also hugs my mom, who shoots me a look of comical desperation over her shoulder of bouncing blonde hair. My mother beams and brags about Peeta when he arrives. I sometimes forget how close they've grown – living together in the Village, Peeta's long haul in the hospital. I let a paranoia sink into my head. Maybe _I'm_ the outsider –not her, not him.

Everything seems to be going fine until Peeta places dessert on the table. He made a cake to celebrate my mother's return home, but when she sees the icing flowers her eyes fall dead. She looks nearly catatonic, save a single tear that slides down her cheek.

"Mom, Mom," I shake her shoulder and she breaks out of it. She looks at Peeta, quickly swiping her hand across her cheek.

"I'm so sorry about your father," she says, and Peeta stills.

"Me too," Peeta says softly.

"Thank you," Rye offers.

We eat the cake and pretend like everything is fine. Like we aren't a bunch of half-broken people burying our grief in sugar, butter, flour.

We leave after dark. Peeta and I walk my mother home. He opens the door and my mother steps inside. I hesitate.

"I think I should stay here tonight," I say quietly, so my mother doesn't hear. I think _I_ should stay here tonight.

"Okay," Peeta says supportively, but something under his voice makes my chest clench.

"It's just tonight," I make an excuse, but Peeta steps off the step.

"No, it's fine. I get it," he says, turning his back and walking away from me.

"Peeta!" I call out. He pauses, looking up at me hopefully. "Come to breakfast?" I ask. It's as though he visibly deflates.

"Sure," he answers with a feigned optimism, turning back again.

That night I dream of death. Of medical tubes and needles and choking and blood. I dream of dying and waking. I dream of melting faces and tongueless mouths. I wake panting and sweating, my sheets soaked. My hand shoots to the pillow next to mine, but I'm alone. I get out of bed and look across the lawn to Peeta's house. The light is on, a small puff of smoke escaping his chimney into the damp, summer sky. He's not sleeping either.

I creep out of my room and silently slip down the stairs. The lawn is covered in dew and my pajama pants soak. I run soundlessly through the dark until I reach Peeta's porch. I stand in front of the door, my hand balled in a gauzed fist, poised to knock, but I hesitate. I hear him pause inside. I hear him pad across the floor to the door. We stand silently across from one another, facing each other with a meaningless piece of wood between us.

 _Knock. Just knock._

I don't. You don't knock to enter the place where you live. Instead I put my hand on the knob and turn. Peeta's standing in the door, bits of flour on his hands.

"Hi," he says with a soft smile, but I don't talk. I step forward and wrap my arms around him. He closes me into him, his skin hot compared to the chill of night air on mine. And so I end up with flour in my hair, my clothes on the ground, sleeping in a bed that's becomes ours, not his.

Everything is ours now. The bed. Grief. Suffering. Love. Burden. Joy. Laughter. Food. Blankets. Wonder. Doubt. Everything is different, but nothing's changed. It's ours now.

 **A/N: Thank you all for your patience! I'm feeling much better. My cast is finally off and I'm bearing weight again. Finally sleeping through the night, too, which is a big help. I appreciate all the kind notes you sent. It definitely made things better.**


	8. Chapter 8 - The Long Way Home

I slip back to my house in the early morning so my mother doesn't wake up alone. Peeta makes breakfast in the kitchen and my mom follows the scent downstairs. I picked some blueberries at the edge of the meadow and Peeta drops them into the pancake batter. He sets a fluffy, golden confection in front of my mother, who chews carefully as she watches the two of us clean up.

"I'm surprised to see Effie here," she comments.

"Oh she's not staying," I answer, although I realize Effie was supposed to leave two weekends ago.

"I can do the dishes," she offers. "You don't have to feed me and clean up too." I realize what my mother wants, what my mother _needs_ right now, is normalcy. And what is normal is not me doting on her like a child.

"I'm going hunting," I announce. My hunting jacket and bag are at Peeta's, so I excuse myself and head out the front door. Rory and I hadn't planned on going out today, so I walk down to the Hawthorne home. I'm about to throw a little rock at his window when the front door opens.

"Katniss," Hazelle says, her eyes clouded in disbelief. I drop the stone to the ground. It's as though my body forgot how to work. My face burns in shame. I don't know what to say. I've allowed all the conflicting things I feel for Gale manifest themselves in the gap between his mother and me.

"I was here for Rory," I manage. A smile breaks out on Hazelle's face. She looks as though I've come home after being lost. As though I'm not the insecure child that can't face her.

"I'll get him," she says with a calm to her voice. She doesn't push. She treats me like a timid animal, one that might bolt at the slightest provocation. She knows me well. I hear the shuffling of teenage feet behind the door and Rory comes bustling out of the house, tucking in his shirt and slinging a pack over his back.

"Bye Mom!" he smiles, kissing her cheek and passing me, leading the way to the woods.

"Bye Hazelle," I add. I try to smile but I'm sure it looks more like a grimace. I turn quickly and follow Rory out to the woods.

"She's not gonna bite, you know," Rory says, chewing an apple as we hike across the Meadow. "She misses you, that's all." I don't respond. I miss Gale. He and I didn't need to talk. I miss silence sometimes. "What happened to your hands?" he asks, staring at my palms.

"Stupid. I fell at the worksite," I dismiss the question. He doesn't push. We spend the afternoon fishing, mostly. I can't hold a bow but I show Rory how to throw a net where the fish migration paths are. The streams that flow down the mountain and to the lake are peppered with fish with silver scales and white bellies. Finnick would be proud of our haul.

"My mother's back," I say as we debone one of the fish on a rock. We need to eat something before the journey home.

"Really? When did that happen?" Rory asks, mimicking my hands with his, his eyes glued to my fingers. He's never worked with fish before.

"Yesterday," I say. We work quietly until the fish are butterflied. I show Rory how to start a fire, which he is naturally good at. We cook the flesh on a rock and eat. The cold water from our bottles is now warm with the summer heat, so I plunge them in the stream to cool while we chew.

"I think we should have a service for Prim. I didn't want to do anything without my mom," I say. He hadn't asked again. Not since the first time. He stops for a second, watching a green leaf flit in the wind.

"I'd like that," he answers.

We head back to town. Rory takes a few fish home, I keep a couple in my bag and head to Sae's with the half dozen remaining. Things have changed since the War. The idea of debt has all but evaporated. At least for a while, we are in a cooperative living situation. It's not an easy adjustment for those of abhorrent to debt. We don't like being helped. It makes us feel helpless. But we are making it work. I give Sae meat. Sae cooks and gives it to the construction crews for free. Sae is kept supplied with food, shelter, and necessities. She wants for nothing but works for everyone. There is no currency right now in District 12. We just do what we can to survive as a group.

"What do you got today, child?" Sae asks as I sling my bag on her makeshift counter. I unload the shining fish and a few handfuls of greens Rory yanked from the earth. She stares at my bandaged hands.

"Rory picked them," I answer her silent question. She inspects the goods approvingly and sets a glass of cold water in front of me. I gratefully gulp it down before the glass can even begin to sweat.

"Thanks," I say, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. We talk for a bit. Her granddaughter is doing well, but Sae is anxious for school to get underway. It's not that she doesn't want to spend time with her, but her granddaughter needs extra care and can be underfoot when Sae has more than just their two mouths to feed. "I know that sounds bad, girl. I'm not saying she's a burden. I love her with my whole heart. But I have obligations to tend to."

"I understand," I say empathetically. I do. We talk about the construction. The school will be one of the first buildings up once the houses are complete. Books have been distributed to parents, encouraging them to try to keep up with their children's reading, writing, and arithmetic until a formal education plan can be completed.

It's dark by the time I'm heading home. I wonder if Peeta worked at the site today or if he stayed home with my mom. I shoot my eyes over and see the crew packing up. Thom waves as he heads home. No Peeta. I sling my bag over my back and head toward Victor's Village. I can hear chatter in the distance as the crews return home to their families. I'll be happy when the houses are built and we are all closer together. The temporary structures are on one side of 12, Victor's Village is on the other. Between is a sprawl of emptiness – some spots excavated and cleaned, others still piled with rubble.

I pass what was once the apothecary. It's where my mother grew up. It's still in ruins. We haven't cleared this far yet. I stop for a moment and stare at it, wondering what my mom was like as a child. Shy, I know that. Beautiful. Open-minded.

When I hear the crunch of gravel underfoot behind me, my body tenses. The sound stops and my stomach drops. Whoever is behind me was trying not to be heard. I instinctually reach for my bow but my back in bare. I drop to my knees as though paying respect to the fallen, but my gauzed hands slowly sweep a pile of dirt.

I shoot up and spin around quickly, throwing the gravel into the eyes of my assailant. He cries out and falls back, but another steps forward to take his place. There are three men. I recognize them from the work site. They are from 13. In his hand I spy a flash of metal and realize he has a pipe. He swings it at me recklessly and I duck. When I shoot back up I jab him quickly in the ribs and hop back out of reach. He clutches his side and the third man steps forward. I know him. Pointed jaw. Broad shoulders. He tripped me.

I immediately recognize he's not like the other two. He's been trained. He's a soldier. I wonder what he went by in 13. I wonder if hearing me called Soldier Everdeen was an affront to his way of life. He swiftly steps forward and his fist pounds into my stomach. It's a stupid throw. Higher and he'd have hit my diaphragm and I'd probably pass out. Aim for my ribs and that's debilitating. Instead, I absorb the blow. It hurts badly and I drop to my knees, but that's not enough to take me down. I force myself up.

I fight dirty. You don't have a choice when your assailant outweighs you by a hundred pounds and outnumbers you 3-to-1. I land my boot in the side of his knee and he drops to the ground momentarily. I try to take off running but by this time the man I jabbed in the ribs is back on his feet and tosses me back toward the man with the pointed chin. He swings and I duck, trying the same rib jab but not having the same luck. He grabs my hand and hauls me into him. This is it. If I left him get his hands around my throat I'm done for. A hurl an elbow backward, smashing it into his nose. I feel hot blood pour down my back and I know I've hit my target.

He throws me brutally to the ground and I crawl. I see the pipe still resting where it was dropped and I know it's my only chance to get out of this alive. I'm only inches away but when I reach out my hand but the second man steps on it hard with his boot and I feel my bones and flesh sear in agony. I scream out, but this only seems to excite the men. I pivot and grab the pipe with my left hand, swinging it around and landing it in the knee of the man pinning me to the ground. He screams and falls backward.

Pointed chin steps toward me, his face and white shirt covered in blood. My eyes flash. _Red on white._ I thought all this was over. I swing the pipe like a bat and it lands in his side. He winces in pain, but I see him swallow it as he keeps coming at me. I pick up a rock from the ground and throw it at him. It's a nuisance at most, but at least I slowed him down. I know how this goes down. He only has to hit me once. Hard. I swing the heavy pipe again as he approaches, but this time he catches it and yanks it from my grip, throwing it over his shoulder. I reach to the ground for another rock and swing it up toward his head, but he's got over a foot on me and evades the attack.

I wonder if I'd have survived going hand-to-hand against Cato or Thresh. I won because I was clever, not because I was powerful. What I need to do is incapacitate this man and run.

I throw a barrage of attacks. I go for his eyes, his ears, his manhood. I realize he's just playing with me. Waiting for me to tire out. He wants the Mockingjay. My eyes grow dark as resolve burns in my stomach. You can't have me.

He steps forward and I stomp on his foot. When he reacts I sweep myself behind him and punch him in the hard in the kidneys. He screams out and drops forward onto his hands. I know the feeling. The world is spinning. This is my chance to get away.

I'm not expecting the blow to the head. As I fall to the ground I see a man with red, demonic eyes staring at me. I realize it's the first man, the one I'd hoped to blind. He punches me again and pain shoots through my body. I spit blood on the ground. He comes at me a third time but I roll, sending his fist into a rock. I know by the guttural tone of his scream he broke it. I force myself to my feet and realize I'm limping. I don't look back. I just run as best I can. No one is following me. My eye is nearly swollen shut and it's dark, but I know my way home.

When I reach Victor's Village the full extent of my injuries start to take effect. Clearly I was running on adrenaline and survival instincts alone, because when I cross the boundary into this safe space I'm overwhelmed. I force myself forward until I get to Peeta's door. I slam my fist into it hard and then slide down the wood toward the porch floor. I can push anymore. I can't fight anymore. I just want to sleep.

"Katniss?" Peeta asks, opening the door and looking out into the moon-bathed yard. It takes him a moment before he looks down. "Katniss!" Peeta doesn't hesitate before I'm in his arms and he's flying across the yard.

"Mrs. Everdeen!" he screams at the house as his feet hit the ground. I see the light flash on at Haymitch's. "MRS. EVERDEEN!" he cries out again, and by the time he's on our porch my mother is standing in the doorway. I'm through the door of the house and my mother gestures to the table. I feel Peeta lay me on the hard, wooden surface. I've watched this scene from the outside a million times.

I never thought I'd be the one on my mother's table.


	9. Chapter 9 - Forgiveness

"What happened?" my mother asks clinically. She is not a desperate woman. She's put that away. Right now she has one job. She is a healer.

"I don't know I don't know!" Peeta rambles, his eyes darting up and down my body. I feel his panic pulsing. I try to say I'm alright but my tongue feels swollen in my mouth.

"Peeta," my mother starts, frustration hidden in her tone. She needs another set of hands. Someone who knows what they are doing. She needs my sister. "Can you get me the calendula salve, alcohol, and the tweezers?" she asks as she peels the wet, sanguine clothes from my body. He darts to the medicine cabinet. Nothing is labelled. My sister would know. My mother looks at him.

"I need you to go get Hazel," my mother states.

"I can't leave her!" Peeta shoots back, his look darting between me and trying to make sense of the medicine cabinet.

"Peeta," she says calmly. Assertively. "I need you to go get Hazel. Katniss needs you to go get Hazel." He stops.

"Okay. Okay okay," he rambles. Peeta drops his face in front of mine. I can barely focus on him. "I'll be right back, okay? I'll be _right_ back." He kisses my forehead and bolts out the door. He'll be there in minutes at the most. I hear the door. Haymitch. Effie. Things start blurring together.

"I need you to stay awake for me. Katniss, listen to me," my mother says, her voice sharp. I shift my eyes to her. The right one is now fully swollen shut. I try to focus on her face, but it's like someone put oil in my eyes. "Stay awake. Do not go to sleep. Nod if you understand me." I think I nod. I must because my mother seems satisfied. "Effie, get her shirt off. Haymitch, go grab me some spare linens from the upstairs closet." I think people are doing as she says because I hear feet and feel hands. I can't keep track of any of it. Cold liquid is poured over a wound and I wince and cringe. I hear Effie gasp and try to ignore her. It's only a few more minutes before Peeta is back and panting heavily.

"She's coming," Peeta responds. My mother pulls up a stool and he drops next to me.

"Do we know what happened?" I hear Haymitch ask.

"Rory says he left her on her way to Sae. Something must have happened between there and home," Peeta answers.

"Was it an accident? Did she get hurt in the rubble?" Effie asks innocently. She's not naïve. She's playing naïve. She wants it to be an accident. If it's not, we have a problem.

"She got beat up. It's pretty obvious," Haymitch answers. I can feel Peeta stiffen next to me. Haymitch sees it too. "Not right now, kid," he says under his breath, placing a hand on Peeta's shoulder.

"Well that's absurd! Who would want to hurt Katniss? She's a hero!" Effie chirps. Haymitch and Peeta look at each other. I'm a hero to many. To others, I tried to kill their president. I was probably responsible for her death anyway. Many still believe there was a plot and I was the insurance policy. Little do they know, Coin's killer is in my kitchen, hovering over my wounds.

Hazel arrives and with her comes a calm to the room. She and my mother work seamlessly together. Peeta clenches my hand in his. Normally he's hot but his fingers are ice cold. It's like all the blood in his body stopped moving.

"That's all we can do tonight," my mother says after what feels like hours. My wounds are sewn where they need to be, cleaned and bandaged. She's used turmeric to reduce the swelling where she can, ice where she can't. "Her pupils are fine, her motor skills seem okay. I think we all need to let her sleep."

"Here? Upstairs?" Peeta asks.

"Up," I grumble, my voice hoarse. I have no desire to feel exposed in the middle of this room any longer.

"The girl says up," Haymitch says. He leans down, his voice low. "Glad you're still with us, sweetheart." Hazel excuses herself politely and goes home to her children. Peeta slips his arms under my body and cradles me against his. He takes the stairs slowly and brings me to my room. He closes the door and sets me on the bed.

"I'm going to go get some stuff ready in the bathroom, okay?" he whispers. I nod and he slips into the other room. Downstairs I can hear talking.

"Are they living together?" I hear my mother ask politely, as though she were asking if anyone wanted a cup of tea.

"Yeah," Haymitch replies. It's quiet. I can't tell if she's just digesting. If she's worried about my safety around Peeta. If I'm too young. If it's too fast. If I'll hurt him. If he'll hurt me.

"Good," she answers. _Good_.

"They really should get married, though. It isn't proper," I hear Effie click in. I can almost feel the sideways glare I'm sure she's getting from Haymitch. I can almost see his raised eyebrow. I smile in bed.

" _They_ should get married?" he repeats sarcastically. Suddenly my heart feels very heavy for Haymitch. What is between them? An unanswered proposal? A lover with one foot out the door?

"I don't live you with, Mr. Abernathy. I'm a guest," she retorts.

"Sure. A guest that keeps saying she's leaving and doesn't," he replies with a surly tone.

"If you want me to vacate your home, simply say so," Effie quips back. There's silence. I imagine she's staring him down. I imagine my mother cleaning the table and pretending she's invisible. "That's what I thought," she adds defiantly. "Lillian, lovely to see you. Please keep us appraised on Katniss."

The front door clicks.

"Hey, you doing okay?" Peeta asks. His silhouette is dark as he stands in the bathroom doorway, lit from behind by the incandescent lights above the sink.

"Yeah," I croak.

He tiptoes across the room. On my nightstand he sets a small bowl of warm water and a cloth, then sits on the edge of the bed beside me. "I thought you might sleep better if we cleaned you up," he whispers. He spends the next ten minutes gingerly wiping crusty blood from the corners of my lips, my ears, my scalp. He digs the dirt out from under my nails and runs a comb through my hair until the knots acquiesce. The bowl of water turns pink and then red as he wrings out the towel again and again. He's right though. I start to feel more like me. I watch his hands silently as he inspects my body. "What happened Katniss?" he asks, finally meeting my eyes. His voice is so quiet I barely hear the words, but I know what was said. I don't answer, I just stare lifelessly at my dresser.

I can't say what happened. Peeta, post-hijacking Peeta, might do something reckless. In a lot of way, the hijacking made him more like Gale. He's not a violent person, even now, but when it comes to protecting me his sensibilities fail him. This will also destroy my mother with guilt, if she knows I was beaten for her crime. I don't trust Haymitch not to get stupid drunk and try to take them on all by himself. If I'm going to protect the people I love I need to keep my mouth shut.

I will handle this without them.

Peeta sighs and gets up, taking the supplies back to the bathroom. I hear the sink running and he comes back with a glass of water. I didn't realize I was thirsty until I saw it, but as I drink my throat feels like gravel and even the plain water stings. I cringe and Peeta takes the glass from my hands, setting it on the nightstand. Peeta gets ready for bed when I hear a knock on the window, like a bird pecking with its beak to get in. It happens again. Peeta looks at the window curiously and rises the edge of the bed. He looks down. He doesn't say anything, but a look of cold determination takes over his frame.

Someone is on the ground throwing rocks at my window.

"What's going on?" I manage, my voice raspy. Peeta considers me, broken in my bed. He steps to my dresser and finds one of his spare sketch pads, a pencil tucked in the pages. He writes something on a page, rips it from the book, and presses it to the window pane. Whatever is going on outside stops and Peeta slips the paper inside the book and crawls into bed beside me.

"It's nothing. I'm here with you. Let's try to get you some sleep," he whispers into my hair, gentle where he lays his hands. The night eventually lulls us and I doze off, but it doesn't last. When I wake Peeta is still sleeping, his hand draped protectively over my waist. As the moonlight fills my bedroom, I slowly slip away from him inch by inch until his hands hold nothing but sheets. I sit up. I'm dizzy, I'm uncontrollably dizzy, and it takes a minute before I manage to get to my feet. I walk to the dresser, Peeta's book sitting innocently on top. I flip through the pages until I find one loose and tucked precariously inside.

 _NOT TONIGHT_

I stare at the sleeping boy.

He's going to do something stupid.

There is no new peacekeeping force in 12 yet. The new government wants law enforcers to protect their own districts. No more importing outsiders to assert authority over strangers. So far it hasn't been an issue. We aren't as destitute as we once were, and with the disappearance of desperation also goes most of its crime. It's foolish to steal, we all share what we have. There are still drunkards. A few weeks ago one of the foreman at the construction site beat his wife. Not much can be kept secret between the thin walls of the temporary shelters, and the next day at work Thom broke his nose. Right now, that's all the justice we need.

I try to sleep, but my dreams are full of pipes and dirt and demonic red eyes. I stare at the ceiling instead.

We stay home for two weeks. It's torture. My mother is trying to compensate for her prolonged absence by doting and Peeta is… Peeta. Finally, I decide enough is enough. When I walk downstairs in my regular clothes, my mother throws a fit. Peeta bites his tongue, but I can tell he's not thrilled.

"I can't stay here anymore. I need out. I need air," I say, lacing up my shoes. "Look, I'm not going hunting. I'm not going to work. I'm just going to the market to get some lunch. I can eat with a black eye."

"Can I come?" Peeta asks.

"Suit yourself," I say and walk out the door.

"Katniss! Katniss!" Peeta calls after me as he chases me out of the house, still trying to get his shoes on his feet. I stomp toward town. "Katniss please stop!" Peeta begs, but I am determined. There's only one way to keep these men from ruining my life. Live it. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do about them. I certainly will not let it lie, but I need to be more calculated about my response. I'm used to being rash, to Haymitch pulling me back in. I'm on my own with this, though.

When I arrive in the market I get looks. I know I don't look as bad as I did. My swelling is down, I can see through both eyes. But even with that, it's obvious something happened to me. I hold my chin up and walk toward Greasy Sae's booth.

"Girlie, where have you been?" Sae asks, not looking up as she pours me a cup of stew. When she raises her head, though, her face drops.

"Thanks, Sae," I offer, taking the bowl and finding a place at one of the wooden tables in the middle of the market. Peeta plops beside me, winded.

"Are you trying to avoid me?" he huffs as he tries to catch his breath. I look at his face. Peeta has followed my lead since the attack. Given me space or curled in close, depending on my mood. Gave me my independence but took care of me when I needed it. He didn't make me talk, he just sat on my floor and sketched in a book, ready if I needed to. I try to think how I would be acting if this had happened in reverse. I'd probably have run out into the night with vengeance in my heart, looking for a fight. I'd have left him alone and broken and needing me. I'd have been absent.

"Yes, I'm avoiding you," I finally admit. We said not to lie. "But I'm not now."

The market is busy. I spot Rory over at one of the booths. Looks like he's trading a basket of blackberries for some thin wire with one of the merchants. When he sees me he makes his way to the table.

"Hey," he says as he sits, straddling his chair. "You gonna finish that?" he points at the stew. I barely touched it.

"Nope," I say, sliding the bowl across the table. Rory picks it up and starts spooning large gulps into his mouth. I realize he's hungry. He must not be doing as well hunting on his own, and if he's anything like his brother, he's giving everything he has to his mom and lying by saying he ate in the woods. I expect him to say something about my face but he doesn't. He's more talkative than Gale, but he knows when to keep his mouth shut. Good. I don't like to be coddled.

I don't realize it at first when they walk in. A pit opens in my stomach as my eyes fix on the three men. They look terrible. For a moment I'm proud of myself. The first man's eyes are still bloodshot, scratches run all along his cheekbones from trying to dig the gravel out of his eyes. The second man walks with an obvious limp, his hand shooting to his ribs and back down again when he moves just so. The man with pointed chin looks the worst. His nose is pale purple and still a little swollen. It radiates throughout his entire face. His upper lip was split and a healed slice runs from his nostril to his teeth. Everyone else in the market has dismissed their appearance. Probably just a drunken brawl among friends that looks raw in the light of day.

But when Peeta spots them, it's as if the room drops to silence.

"What?" Rory asks, following Peeta's gaze to the group of men. Suddenly it clicks and Rory drops his spoon, which noisily clangs as it hits the clay bowl and clatters onto the table. Peeta and Rory stand in unison, their eyes locked on the men from District 13.

"No," I whisper, but it's too late for that. The three men are leaning over the counter talking with one of the merchants, laughing amiably with one another. Rory's right hand balls into a tight fist.

"Hey, you think it's funny to team up on an unarmed girl?" Rory says.

One of them turns around. "Get lost, boy," he says dismissively.

"You're just lucky you surprised her. If she'd known you were coming you wouldn't have been able to walk home that night," Rory spits out.

The largest man assesses Rory. He's clearly still just a boy, but so was Peeta when he entered the Games. We were all just children. The people around them fall silent, watching the exchange. I feel some eyes dart between the men and back to me as people start to put two and two together.

"I don't know what you're talking about, kid," the man says unconvincingly. He has at least a foot on Rory and at least seventy-five pounds.

"Did you hurt her?" Peeta asks, his voice low, his stare lethal. The man moves his gaze to Peeta, measuring him with his eyes. Peeta is a threat.

"Did she say I did?" he retorts, cracking his knuckles. Peeta just stares at him, but I can feel it boiling in his stomach. The tracker jacker venom poisoning his mind with anger and retribution, like a liquid demon that lives under his skin. The man smirks at my silence. "I guess I didn't then, did I?" the man snarls.

It seems like it might dissipate, but when the man with the pointed chin turns away, he mutters under his breath, "Because she liked it." That's when Peeta kicks him in the back of the knees and he drops to the floor.

It's utter chaos. Few people from District 12 served in the frontlines of the war. Their lack of participation wasn't by choice. Many were too injured in the firebombing, or widowed with children to care for, or too malnourished to train. People here see violence and they run. Most flee from the market. I see Thom and Bristol pushing through the crowd toward the skirmish, along with a few others.

The man with the pointed chin swings at Peeta, who agilely avoids his blow before sending his fist under the man's chin. It's as though I can hear his teeth break from across the room. Rory is exchanging swings with the red-eyed man as the one with the limp sneaks up on him from behind. Others from 13 have jumped in to protect their own. Thom takes a blow to the stomach but lands his fist squarely on the man's jaw and he drops. Bristol breaks a chair over a man's back. The men attack Peeta with a viciousness that doesn't seem equitable for a brawl, but their frustration only grows as Peeta disables one assailant after another.

My eyes dart around the room. The market barters in almost everything. When my eyes flash on the steely glint of a metal blade, I know I've found the hunting booth. I shoot up from my seat and dart across the room. _There has to be one somewhere_ , I think as I toss items aside, scrummaging through things that are not mine. I see the long curve of a bow and grab it in my hand, loading a quiver on my back. I climb on top of a table and draw an arrow, pointing it at the limping man who now has Rory in a chokehold. "Enough!" I scream and everyone falls still. Every eye in the market shoots up at me, standing defiantly on the table, a bowl of Sae's soup spilled at my feet, an arrow aimed with deadly precision. "Let him go!" I order, and the man with the limp looks up at me. I draw the arrow back further. "Let him go," I breathe with a darkness in my voice I haven't heard since the Games. The man steps backward and Rory falls to the floor, choking and spattering.

"You three. Step forward," I command, and the three men step away from the fight and stand in a straight line in front of me. I'd like to say I'm sorry for what happened to Coin, but I'm not. She was toxic to this nation. This attitude, this belligerent allegiance to her, is only going to keep us from growing together as a country. But before I berate them, I realize that's not what we need anymore. Coin meant something to them. She kept their families alive. Their loyalty is founded in love and I took that from them. I hurt them so they hurt me back. I exhale. I try to remember Finnick on the stage of District 4, calming his people on the Victory Tour. I remember his tone, his words.

"The time for violence is over," I say. "The war is done. It's not always so obvious. It's not so easy to let it go, but I understand why you did what you did. I've lost people too. People that led my way, people that kept me safe," I impart. I remember Boggs shoving me away from him, telling me to run. I remember Lyme throwing herself on a grenade, sacrificing her life for ours. Jackson and her last siege against the Mutts, giving us time to escape. I've wanted revenge for their deaths. I've wanted justice. But at some point, we have to move forward. We have to let go. I look the men in the eye. "I understand why you did what you did. And I forgive you."

The man with the pointed chin looks up at me with disbelieving eyes. I'm not the villain he'd imagined. The one birthed by rumors, promulgated by hate. The one that killed his president because she was bloodthirsty and unforgiving.

I'm human, too.

His eyes well up, his face burning with shame.

"I'm so sorry," he chokes out.

"Me too," I say, finally dropping my bow. I jump from the table and walk up to him. He looks wrecked with grief. I reach out my hand and he takes it. We stare at each other for a while. In the end, we all feel anguish. We all bear sorrow.

"I think you should go," I add with a quiet certainty, and he nods his head in agreement. He can't stay here after what he's done. But he can leave with dignity. The men pick themselves up and hobble out of the market.

The people of 12 immediately start what has become their new reality – rebuilding. They pick up the tables and chairs. They reassemble the booths and objects strewn about the ground. Thom relieves me of the bow, patting my shoulder. I rush over to Rory, who seems alright once he catches his breath. When Peeta's eyes meet mine, though, he shoves himself to his feet and rushes away from me. I chase him out of the market and into the street.

"Peeta, wait!" I call out, but he keeps his pace. "Peeta!" I say, grabbing his arm as I reach him. He spins around.

"I expect better from myself than that!" he spits out, his voice sharp. "Rory is a child. He doesn't know any better. But I do, Katniss! What _was_ that?" Peeta's face burns in shame.

"Did you flash?" I ask. Peeta is very quiet. His fists are still bloody and raw.

"No. That wasn't the Mutt. That was me. I need to go," he says again, turning away from me.

"Peeta –" I call out. He pauses, not looking back to me.

"I don't know who I am anymore. The Games, the hijacking... I can't find who I used to be before all that," he confesses.

"None of us are who we used to be!" I say quickly, taking a step toward him. He withdraws.

"I don't want to be this person!" he says, finally facing me. "I thought with the war over, I could come home and I'd be myself, but look at me!" His white tee shirt is spattered with blood. Red on white on red on white. He looks broken. "My father would be ashamed of me. I always wanted to be like him, and instead I became _her_."

"Peeta," I say softly, but he stumbles backward away from me. He raises his hands to tell me to stop, but when he sees the crimson blood his eyes dilate and retract.

"I need to go home," he says seriously, turning from me and sprinting toward his house. I walk slowly back to Victor's Village giving him time to cool off. When I reach his front door it's locked. I don't have a key to Peeta's. I've never needed one. I knock quietly. "Peeta?"

It's silent.


	10. Chapter 10 - The Way

I expect Peeta to come over that night but he doesn't. I expect him at breakfast but he's not there. I try to give him his space. It's what he wants, obviously, but I've never been good at prioritizing what he wants. By noon I'm trudging my way across the lawn. My hand grabs the doorknob but I pause. I shouldn't assume things. I ball up my first and knock.

The door creaks open and I'm greeted by a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy, just not the one I want.

"Hey Katniss," Rye Mellark says, keeping his voice low.

"Hey," I say. I don't offer more than that. I stand there expectantly, but Rye doesn't move.

"He doesn't want company right now," Rye says, trying not to make eye contact.

"I'm not company," I respond. He doesn't budge. "Come on, Rye." I'm frustrated. Visibly frustrated. I don't know why Rye is suddenly so emboldened but he is not having it. His eyes lock with mine.

"How many times have you pushed him out of your life? Did he show up on your doorstep all demanding and needy? He just wants some space to figure stuff out, Katniss. You can give him that," Rye answers.

Peeta has never wanted space. Not unless he thought he would hurt me.

"Did he flash yesterday? After?" I ask. Rye stares at the door frame, my eyes trace his jaw. He looks so similar to Peeta sometimes.

"Fine," I answer tersely, spinning on my heel and stepping off the porch.

"Katniss!" Rye calls out in a loud whisper. He looks over his shoulder and then closes the door quietly. "He's sleeping. He doesn't even know you're here."

"And last night?" I ask.

"He came home and called me. By the time I got here he'd already flashed. He locked himself in a closet in the front hall and threw the key somewhere out in the lawn. It took me two hours to get him out. After that he passed out and he hasn't woken up since," Rye says. "He doesn't want you around when he… you know…."

I run my hands over my face. I thought we were past this. He hasn't flashed in so long. And he's been able to keep control before. Maybe he's out of practice. Ugh. I don't know what to do with this. I need advice. I need… Prim. Cinna. Someone.

"Okay. Just… when he wakes up…. Tell him I said hi," I answer. Hi? I'm so stupid sometimes. I step off the porch and start to walk away.

"Katniss, one other thing," Rye starts. I look up at him and I can tell he feels awful about what he's about to say.

"Just spit it out," I say, meeting his eye.

"Peeta said… lock your doors. That's all," Rye blurts out quickly, as if it will make it hurt less.

I don't respond, I just turn around and start the walk home, but a thought pushes its way into my mind. Cinna. _When you see you are being selfish, change it._ Make a different choice. So my feet take me to the market instead. I manage to find most of what I need. Some of the items aren't exactly what I'm looking for, but they'll do. I stop by the work site and bargain for the last of the supplies. By the time I'm back in Victor's Village it's nearly dark. I take my loot up to my room.

My mother doesn't bother me.

I take position by my window and watch the house across the way. The light's on in the kitchen. Through the thin, white cotton curtain I can see two shadows move about in measured and familiar paths between the sink, the counter, the oven. They're baking together.

Rye hates baking. He's never been very good at it. Not like his father, not like Peeta. He doesn't have the patience. Baking takes calm, it takes time. Rye is too busy juggling the eggs and hiding spoons in the flour to follow his recipes correctly. In the bakery, Rye mostly ran the frontend. Customers found his wide smile and cavalier attitude charming. Peeta was shy, like his father. He stayed in the back and focused his hands on the dough. When Peeta was reaped, there were murmurs of relief that it was Peeta and not Rye. No one cared what happened to Peeta. Even watching their shadows, I know who is who. Rye is playful, erratic even. Peeta has a steadiness about how he moves.

I drift off and wake up hours later, my neck cramped from leaning against the windowsill. There's just one shadow now, still at the counter. The shadow turns and walks toward the window, opening the curtain. He looks up toward me. At Peeta's face I drop hurriedly to the floor, hiding below the windowsill. I'm surprised I don't wake my mother with the crash. I'm caught. I think I'm caught. I creep my face up slowly, peeking out the window until I make eye contact with the boy across the lawn. His lips are caught in a half-smirk. He waves.

My face burns red with embarrassment. Peeta turns away from the window and walks across the kitchen. I'm startled when I hear the phone ring loudly. I leap from my bed and race down the stairs to the phone in the kitchen. I rip it off the receiver before a third ring drives my mother from her bed.

"Hi," I say awkwardly, winded and out of breath. At first he doesn't say anything. I wait as my stomach clenches.

"Hey," he finally offers.

"Hi," I say again. Well this is going well. "Did you… um… did you want something?"

"I just wanted to hear your voice," Peeta answers.

"Well, this is my voice," I reply, and I hear him chuckle softly on the other end of the line. We're quiet for a moment. "Peeta, come over," I say softly. I hear him sigh.

"I can't."

"Peeta, come over," I repeat.

"I flashed after the fight. I think it was the blood but I don't know. I just… I don't know how we are ever supposed to be together if I might kill you at the sound of a random word or the sight of blood," Peeta says, his voice heavy.

"That's not fair," I say, a rock forming in the base of my throat as I force myself not to cry. I sound like a child, but it's not fair. None of this is fair.

"I know, Kat. I don't think so either. But –"

"It's been months since the last time you flashed. You are getting control of it. It just takes time," I ramble. "It takes practice." I flinch at the word. I remember his doctors from 13. The desensitization sessions. Treatment protocols. Pills in orange bottles with stubborn caps. Peeta still talks to a therapist on the phone at least once a week. It's not that he's not trying.

"Tell me a story," he says softly into the receiver. He's changing the subject. Our immediate focus is getting through the night.

"Come over and I'll tell you a story," I retort. He's silent. This time I sigh. "Okay. Um…" I try to think of something light. I remember all the stories Peeta used to tell me to help me sleep. Stories of Rye's antics in the bakery. Wrestling matches gone wrong. "There was this one time that I was mad at Gale," I start.

"One time?" Peeta teases. I smile.

"Yes. This one time I was mad at Gale because he pretended like he was teaching me a new snare, but instead I ended up with wire wrapped around my thumbs and the harder I pulled, the tighter it got. I had to beg him to cut me free with his hunting knife. He said he learned it from a kid at school. It was called a finger trap," I say. Peeta hums to indicate he's listening, but he's already so tired. "So anyway, I wanted to get back at him, so Madge stole her mom's clear nail polish for me. The next day after hunting, I stopped at the Hawthorne's to use the bathroom, but instead I painted their bar of soap so it was encased in clear polish. It wouldn't lather, and none of the boys could figure out what was wrong. It was days of those smelly teenage boys not bathing with soap. Gale reeked. He was pursuing this girl at school at the time…. Oh, what was her name?" I pause for a moment. I wonder if Peeta will offer suggestions, but on the other end I just hear the steady breath of weariness. "Kara. Kara Mayberry. Gale went up to talk to her and she plugged her nose and ran the other way." I start laughing to myself, but it's quiet on the other line. "Peeta?" I ask. I am greeted only with silence.

I wait a little while.

Okay, long enough. I leave the phone off the hook and lay it on the floor. I pad up to my room, throw on some pants, and grab my bag of supplies. I sneak across the lawn to Peeta's. The door is locked, but I take a paperclip from my pocket and start finagling in the keyhole. Gale took lock picking in District 13. I helped him study. I try to find the release, but the pick swirls fruitlessly around. Maybe I should have taken more classes and spent less time feuding with Coin. When I hear the lock click, though, I grin widely, gratified.

I push the door open quietly. To my left, I can see Peeta sleeping on the floor of the kitchen, phone receiver in hand. I walk straight forward and creep up the stairs silently. To the left is Peeta's room. To the right is where my room is in my house, straight forward is Prim's. I don't know where Rye is sleeping. I gamble and go straight, pushing the door open quietly.

The room is empty. I know Peeta used to paint in here, but they never returned any of his supplies following the Victory Tour. I reach in my bag. I pull out the wooden easel that was displaying Sae's sign in the Market. I got it off her for a rabbit and a jar of pickled green beans. There's some canvas from the seamstress. It's not painter's quality, but it will do until we can order more than food and staples from on the Capitol train. I pull out the small cans of paint I bartered off Thom at the worksite. It's wall paint, not oil paint. I hope it's enough. I put the paint brushes I made from a soft bristle hairbrush and some straight, sturdy sticks I found in the woods. I step back and eye my work. It's not professional by any means, but if it lets him get out the demons in his head, that's all he needs.

I sneak out and quietly close the door. I tiptoe down the stairs, stealing one last look at the sleeping baker before I dart back into the night. I spend the rest of the evening on my kitchen floor next to the phone, just in case Peeta wakes up and needs to talk. I finally doze off soon after the sun starts breaking through the kitchen window. I'm awoken by a pounding on my front door.

I open it and find Peeta, cheeks flushed on my front porch.

"I told you to lock this door," he says, winded and with a half-smile.

"I don't recall you saying that," I say, my expression mirroring his.

"Rye said he told you," Peeta says, his grin growing.

"Oh Rye. Yeah, since when have I listened to anything Rye told me?" I answer.

I look to Peeta's hands. There are speckles of blue and green paint. He steps up from the porch and into the doorframe with me.

"You got me paint," he says, his hand sliding to my hip.

"Mhmm," I confirm, biting my lip.

"You made me a studio," Peeta says, pushing a piece of hair behind my ear. It's almost past my chin now. He's fascinated with it.

"Mhmm," I nod my head. He leans forward and my back presses against the door frame. His thumb strokes my hip and I feel as though I might melt.

"I can't stay away from you. I should, but I can't," he whispers.

"Good," I murmur back. He presses his forehead to mine. I let my eyes fall closed and feel him here with me.

"Thank you," he breathes. "For helping me find my way."

My mother clears her throat loudly and we shoot away from each other. Peeta nearly trips over himself, blushing feverishly.

"Sorry, Mrs. Everdeen!" Peeta spatters.

She smirks as she walks into the kitchen and takes the coffee from the cupboard. "Aren't you joining us? Or are you going to keep gawking at my daughter from the porch?" she asks Peeta without turning around.

"Yeah, um... Yes. Ma'am," he stammers.

"Go get your brother. I'm making my kids breakfast," my mother says. Peeta smiles. I can't help it, I smile too.

I've decided I'm not running. Peeta finally decides too.


	11. Chapter 11 - Instincts

I'm not sure I like sleeping in my house again. Peeta is here, so it's tolerable, but it reminds me of a happier past that feels just out of reach. Peeta's is more private, too. My house is situated immediately next to Haymitch's. Effie has returned to the Capitol to "attend to business." Haymitch won't say so, but they had a fight. He slams around his house, cursing and crashing into things. He's not even drunk, he's just miserable. It's a new, foreign noise that shoots Peeta and me up from sleep.

"What was that?" he asks in a comical mix of alert but drowsily confused.

"I have no idea," I answer. We hear the noise again and I know exactly what it is. "He didn't…" I mutter, throwing on clothes and slipping out of the room. I head down the stairs and straight to the front door. Outside, it's unmistakable.

It's a honk.

"Get away from me, you nasty critter!" I hear Haymitch bellow as he stomps around his yard. A flock of tiny white goslings follow him around.

"Haymitch, you didn't!" I call out.

"They won't leave me alone. They only hatched a couple hours ago and they've been like this ever since. They follow me everywhere!" he roars.

"Where's the mom?" I ask, assessing the situation.

"There is no mom! Thom just gave me a bunch of eggs!" Haymitch shouts over the din of baby honks.

"And you saw them hatch? The first thing they saw was you?" I ask.

"Well yeah!" he responds, not following. I can't help it now, a laugh escapes my mouth. "What's so funny?" He scowls at me.

"They think you're their mom," I smirk.

"Do I look like a goose to you, sweetheart? They aren't that stupid!" he says back.

I'm laughing so hard my sides start to hurt. I can barely breathe. "That's how birds work, Haymitch. They imprint on the first thing they see."

"Well un-print them!" he roars.

"You can't. Once it's done, it's done. They're your babies now, Haymitch," I tell him, snickering through it all. "Congratulations."

"That's not what I signed up for! I wanted big, mean geese to eat for dinner and defend my property and…" his voice trails as one of the tiny goslings trips and lets out a honk that's sounds like 'help!' to a doting parent. Haymitch scoops him up right away, snuggling the baby close before placing it back on its bright orange feet. He realizes what he just did and his face drops. "Shit."

"Good luck!" I call out before turning back to the house.

"Wait! Don't leave me like this! Come on, sweetheart!" The words are buried by the door.

"What was that?" Peeta asks, his eyes blurry as he brews a pot of coffee on the counter.

"Haymitch got geese," I reply. Peeta rushes to the window and starts laughing as he watches the tiny babies follow Haymitch into the house.

"No! Not in the house!" I hear him bellow from outside.

Peeta slides a cup of coffee across the counter at me. I miss the tea at Peeta's. The quiet. The smell of bread and the heaviness of the quilt on his bed. I miss him, even though he's right in front of me. I miss _our_ house.

"I'm hunting with Rory today," I announce. Peeta nods. Things are falling back into place.

"I'm going to work at the construction site. They're talking about rebuilding the bakery," he adds quickly. "After they finish the last of the homes, of course."

"Oh," I say. We haven't really talked about it. I mean, of course they'd rebuild the bakery. Any of the food producing businesses take priority, but I don't know what this means. "That's good," I add, forcing a smile as Peeta studies my face. I try to remain calm. "Are you going to live there?" I ask as casually as I can. Peeta pricks an eyebrow.

"I don't know. I mean…. It would certainly be easier to run the bakery and live above it, but… I don't know. What do you want?" he asks.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. I never saw myself living in town. I never saw myself working in the bakery, but that seems inevitable if I live there. Peeta bakes a few loaves of bread every day in his kitchen, but with the tools of the bakery he could feed the whole district. He also misses his father, and that hurt aches less when he's kneading and rolling and doing things that make his dad feel close. I understand _why_ Peeta needs to do this, but I've never wanted to be that domestic. I don't want to wear an apron and greet customers with a fake smile. I'm not like Delly – bright and cheerful. I scowl and curse and sulk. I was never meant to woo patrons. We all know I'm useless in the kitchen. I'm not sure how I fit in to that version of his life. "I'm going hunting," I state, taking a large swig of the hot coffee before abandoning it on the counter and heading out the door.

Buried in the woods, I relish the escape. The trees are a reverie. I know who I am out here. Rory and I walk for hours, exploring and searching for berries before we end up at our trap line. We strip down our catch and reset the line. I teach Rory a new snare.

"Slip that end through here," I point, watching Rory's fingers carefully as he sets the last step of the trap.

"Did you learn that from Gale?" he grins, satisfied with his work.

"No, Finnick, actually," I answer. "Well, the trap itself is Gale's. The slip knot here," I point. "That is Finnick's."

"Gale didn't like Finnick," Rory says as he stands, wiping the dirt from his knees. "He didn't think Finnick was a _serious person_." I laugh.

"I think Gale liked him in the end. It just took some warming up," I answer. "You'd like Finnick. He'd like you too."

"Doubt it," Rory grumbles.

"He would. Finnick likes everyone," I tease, but Rory is serious. "Why wouldn't Finnick like you, Rory?" I ask. His face is slack, his eyes distant.

"What's to like? I'm a mediocre hunter at best. My traps suck. You have to redo most of them. I'm not funny or nice or particularly good-looking. The only thing I had going for me was Prim and she…" his words trail off.

I'm not sure where this is coming from, but I've learned grief is unpredictable. When everything hurts it's hard to see the good in yourself. "I like you plenty," I respond, keeping my eyes focused on the game we've started skinning. "You're smart. You care about your family. You're generous. You don't talk too much," I say nonchalantly, as if it's not a big deal to praise him. I feel Rory's eyes on me but I don't acknowledge it. This would be easier with Prim. I'd tickle her until she smiled, whisper sweet compliments in her ear. Tease her, love her, mean every word of it. "Gale couldn't shoot to save his life when we first came out here," I add.

"Really?" Rory asks, his eyes bright.

"Really. He wasn't patient. He didn't breathe," I answer. I remember Gale's arrows hitting the ground, bouncing and skidding imperfectly. "You are a much better shot than he was at this point," I say. I can see him beaming from the corner of my eye.

We have a generous haul home. Summer has been fruitful. It's lucky, too, because Rory and I have taken to giving most of our game to Greasy Sae. He's had more than enough to bring home, and the workers in town really need it. We have shipments of supplies from 13 and the Capitol, but things are slow and often delayed. Much of the railway was bombed or destroyed in the War. Most of the other districts are focusing on rebuilding that first.

We stop to rest by a stream, filling our water jugs and sipping the cold water.

"We can't stay long, we're out here too late," I say, the dusk already settling in the trees around us. It will be almost night by the time we're home. I usually know better, but we hiked further than I expected and our haul is slowing us down.

"Katniss, do you think when we get back we could –" I throw my hand up and slam it into Rory's chest.

"Don't… move…" I whisper, my eyes fixed on a large, lumbering bear with two cubs directly in our path. They aren't newborns. They are a couple months old. Toddling. Curious. "Walk backwards slowly," I say in a congenial voice. "Don't look at the bear directly. Do not make any sudden movements. Just keep this pace and walk backwards," I say. "Talk to the bear. Keep your voice calm. Firm."

"We're going to die," Rory says pleasantly to the bear.

"Maybe," I say back. "You could politely ask it not to kill you."

"Funny," he answers, fear seeping into his voice. Every muscle in my body is on alert. "Do you like squirrel?" he asks as he drops one of our catches on the ground, continuing his pace evenly away from the beasts.

One of the cubs walks up curiously to the game, batting it with his paw before gobbling it down. For a moment I'm relieved, but this only piques the cub's curiosity and he picks up his pace to draw closer to the funny creatures with the free meat. His ears point forward and he plods his way down the path toward us. Rory's fingers tickle his bow.

"No," I order, my eyes on the mother. Her coat is deep black and her belly is still fat from nurturing its womb. She's probably three hundred pounds. Her movement is slow but her eyes stay fixed on me. Her saunter stops and one of the cubs sits next to her, digging at the ground with its paw. The inquisitive one keeps following us. It's when mama stands on her hind legs and towers over us that fear begins to take over. I can't see straight. I grab the sides of my jacket and try to make myself look big, but the tiny bear keeps pace like a loyal dog. Finally the female bear barks out and the cub breaks contact with us and turns back to her. She starts a journey off the path and into the woods, the two rascals following sloppily behind her. I watch them until they've disappeared into the trees. I wait until I can't hear the rustling of dead leaves under paw.

"Go," I order. "Go go go go go!" We take of running toward town. Rory drops a bird he had proudly deplumed not an hour ago. "Leave it!" I yell as we sprint through the forest. We run until our muscles plead with us to stop. Until we've sweat all the water from our bodies. Until our feet feel like stones that we are dragging along with us. We finally start to make out town through the treeline. At the edge of the Meadow we finally stop, collapsing in the high grass of the field.

"You said not to walk in the grass because of ticks," Rory pants.

"Shut up," I answer, my chest heaving up and down as my lungs burn. We lie there for at least ten minutes we're able to force ourselves to our feet again. We head up to the house. I drop our bags on the table and we each take a stool, gulping down water gluttonously before dropping our heads to the counter.

"What happened?" Peeta asks, coming into the kitchen to find us a mess of sweat and wear. "You're late."

"Bear," I breathe.

"What?" he asks.

"Bear. In the woods. Bear," I reply, too exhausted to form complete sentences.

"Three bears," says Rory, not lifting his head.

"Are you serious? Have you ever seen a bear before?" Peeta presses, worry evident on his face.

"No," I say, my cheek cherishing the cold slab of the countertop. "Gale told me he did once, but I thought he was bragging."

"Did it attack you?" he asks. I let out a fatigued laugh and he stares at me indignantly.

"Peeta, if a bear attacked us we wouldn't be at the counter right now. We'd be dead. It's a bear," I exclaim wearily. Rory, who up until this point has been stoic in his lingering fear, starts snickering into the counter. "Stop it," I jab his side, but I can't bury a smile.

The front door opens and Haymitch comes stomping into the house, followed in short order by a line of honking, pooping, waddling goslings. He has one tucked in his breast pocket.

"Nope! Nope. I can't. I'm done with animals for today. I hate all of them," I announce before stomping up the stairs to my room. I pass my mother on the stairs and walk past her with a shrug. I need a hot shower and tea and to sleep until I'm fifty. Downstairs I hear honking and commotion. I shut the door and wish the world away.

In the bathroom I run the water until the whole room fills with steam. I peel off my sweaty clothes and leave them unceremoniously piled on the floor. I reach my hand under the stream of water. It's hot. It's too hot, which to me seems perfect right now. I climb in and my skin protests but my muscles sing out in relief.

I hear the bathroom door creak open and Peeta steps into the room.

"Hey," he says through the steam. I feel guilty about earlier. I was rude.

"Hey," I respond back, _I'm sorry_ stuck in my throat.

"I'm glad you weren't eaten by a bear," Peeta offers and I laugh. I hear him hum in approval.

"What?" I say, pulling back the curtain and sticking my head out so I can see him. I was mean and he's not even mad. He's happy even. "What?" I say again, irritation growing in my tone, a scowl crossing my face. I feel like the butt of a joke I don't know.

"Nothing, you just… You laughed a lot today. You laughed all morning at the ducks, and you laughed with Rory about the bears. I just… I love when you laugh," he answers.

"They're geese," I correct him as I pull myself back to the scalding water. He's right though. I felt happy today, and now I feel guilty. It percolates under my skin and makes me feel uneasy. I feel guilty for I shouldn't be happy when others can't be. When others aren't here anymore.

"I like you happy," Peeta says. "It makes me happy."

He should be happy. He deserves it.

I deserve to be happy.

I pull back the curtain again.

"Are you coming?"

Peeta's face shoots up in surprise. There's a house full of people downstairs.

"Are you coming?" I repeat.

Peeta doesn't even bother undressing, he just steps in with his shirt and shorts still on. His mouth eagerly seeks mine out as I pull the clinging shirt from his body and drop it with a soaked thud on the floor. Kissing is different in the shower, when everything is already wet and hot and swollen. His lips search for something – the taste, the feel of me. Everything is harder and rougher when your skin is already sheened with water. I nip his neck and Peeta's eyes flash as his knees buckle in response. He slides hand to my face with intention, kissing me like he doesn't know how to do anything else.

We spend too long in the shower, shoving our hands over one another's mouths as we try to keep quiet until we eventually wind up a pile of knotted limbs at the bottom of the tub. We let the water pour over us until every bit of skin is pruned and pink. We collapse into bed with wet hair and tired bodies.

We dream with weaved fingers and kissing palms.


	12. Chapter 12 - Plans

When I wake up, Peeta is still out cold. He's on his stomach, the sheets pulled up over his legs and his bare back providing a canvas for the morning sunlight breaking through our cracked window. I rip the sheets off, my body drenched in sweat. My dream from last night is still so vivid, so real, that my chest clenches when I close my eyes. I can see Boggs in front of me, bleeding and knowing he's dying, but yet so hopeful. I feel his flesh and his pain. I remember the tears carving streaks down his blood-caked cheeks.

"Peeta. Peeta," I shake him until he wakes up, rolling over and looking at me with a crooked morning smile.

"Come back to sleep," he whispers, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me into him.

"I need to go," I say.

"Five more minutes," he replies, burying his chin in my neck.

"No, I mean. I made a promise. I need to go to District 13," I say. With that, Peeta is immediately alert and on edge.

"Katniss, that's not a good idea. What happened with those men… That's not an isolated sentiment. Thirteen is not a safe place for you anymore," he says quickly, sitting up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Why would you want to go to Thirteen?"

"When Boggs died," I start, but I can't find the words. Peeta watches me intently, not pushing but engaged. Waiting for me to say what I need to say. This must be coming out of nowhere for him, but Boggs's ghost has been haunting me for hours. I pull the sheet up over my chest and sit up beside him. " _Before_ Boggs died, I promised him I'd take Maya to the sea. Because he told me he would after the war, and he can't now, and…" I breathe in. "I don't want the last thing I said to him to be a lie." I feel Peeta's gaze as he takes me in. "You don't have to come if you don't want to. I know you have to work on the bakery and–"

"I'm coming," he says before I can ramble out any more excuses on his behalf. Relief floods my veins. Boggs would never know if I didn't keep my promise. His wife wouldn't know. His daughter wouldn't know. But I would. And it would eat me alive, like worms in the stomach of an ill dog.

"I need to make some phone calls," I say, slipping out of the bed. Peeta's eyes run over my bare back. I look over my shoulder at him and he smiles. I give half a smile back. I yank a tee shirt over my head and head downstairs. I should use the office, but I don't go in there. I call Effie from the kitchen instead.

"What would I need to do to arrange a trip to District Thirteen?" I ask.

"Katniss dear, don't you think that's a tad imprudent?" Effie tweets on the other end, but after some back and forth she agrees to make the necessary arrangements.

"Is… Haymitch… coming with you?" she asks offhandedly. She's trying to be coy and nonchalant about it, but Effie has never been either of those things.

"No. I mean, I haven't asked, but he has obligations here," I say.

"Obligations? Really? And what might those be?" she clicks, the pitch of her voice getting higher with each question. They really haven't been speaking at all, I realize.

"He has a flock full of baby geese that think he's their mom. They follow him around like he's got them under a spell or something," I reply. It's silent for a moment, and then I hear a clap of laughter.

"Haymitch! A mother! He can't take care of himself, let alone anyone else!" Effie giggles but the words are bitter. Injurious if he'd heard them.

"I don't know, Effie. He's doting on them. Haymitch really cares about them. It's…. it's weird," I respond and Effie's laughter stops abruptly.

"Well, perhaps I should come to Twelve to show you off. Walk you through your itinerary. If ever you needed an escort!" Effie offers.

"Oh, you don't need to do that. We'll be fine with–"

"Don't be silly. I'll be there in three days' time," she interrupts. "Please do pack accordingly," Effie reminds me in her ever irksome way.

"Thanks," I say into the receiver. Effie flourishes through her goodbyes and I hang up.

I tell Rory that afternoon as we pick berries at the edge of the meadow. He's not happy, but he understands. I offer to let him tag along, but he says his family needs him and I can't say he's wrong.

"How did your mom take the news about the bear?" I ask.

"Oh, no one is telling Hazelle about the bear. Got it?" he says with a playful threat. The way he says his mother's name makes me laugh.

"And you said you weren't funny," I tease, ruffling his hair with my hands. I take some of the berries back to my house. I add a little sugar to the cream in our refrigerator and whip it hard until it's thick and velvety. It's a trick Peeta showed me and basically impossible to mess up. I cover the berries and set it on the table for dessert.

It's just my mom and me for dinner. Peeta is pulling double shifts at the worksite until we leave. I try to figure out how to broach the subject. She won't be happy about me going to Thirteen.

"I have something I need to tell you," I start as casually as possible. My mother freezes instantly. She carefully finishes chewing and lays her fork on her plate. She folds her hands in front of her and meets my gaze. I can see she's holding her breath, but she tries to keep her face flat. "Peeta and I…"

"Katniss, I'm so sorry," my mother blurts out, unable to control herself. What is it with people interrupting me today?

"For what?" I ask, visibly frustrated.

"For not being here when you needed me. Maybe if I'd been a better mother then you wouldn't be in this situation," she says, reaching a hand out for mine. I tug mine back, confusion all over my face.

"What situation?" I ask. What does she know that I don't? What is she keeping from me?

"You aren't….?" she stammers.

"Aren't what?" I respond.

"You aren't pregnant?" she asks.

"What? No! Of course not. Seriously?" I spit out, standing from the table. It's not unreasonable for her to think that. Even though we were given shots before the Games, birth control is not something that's easy to come by. The Capitol knew the nation's population was in jeopardy. In the Districts, having a family wasn't a choice. If you were with someone, you were having kids. It's part of why I never wanted to get married. Gale said it was just another tool of the Capitol to oppress us. Limit our resources and give us too many mouths to feed. Parents will do anything to save their children – even comply with the horrors we faced. "I don't want to talk about this," I say. "Just… never mind." I dismiss myself from the table.

"Katniss, what?" she asks. I pause.

"After the Quell… I don't even know if I can, Mom." The words hurt more than I thought they would. I don't want kids. Certainly not right now. But there are no more Games. There is no more War. I don't know what that means, but I'd like to decide for myself. I think Snow may have taken that from me too. Tears sting my eyes and I swipe my hand quickly across my face to wipe them away.

"Do you want me to check you out?" she asks earnestly.

"Yes," I say before I even realize what her words mean. I do. I want to know. We go upstairs and I lock the bedroom door. I don't want an accidental guest. This is between me and my mom. I remember the kind doctor from District 13. She hesitated during my exam. She somehow knew I hadn't been pregnant. Did she know I couldn't be?

I watch my mom's face for a reaction as she does her work, but she keeps it fixed as she concentrates.

"Everything feels fine, Katniss," she finally says and I audibly sigh in relief. "When was the last time you menstruated?"

"Not since before the Quell," I answer. "After my first Games it was almost a year before I started again. Because of the shot."

"Well, whatever is blocking your period is chemical, not physiological. You are perfectly healthy," she replies. "Which means you need to use protection. What they gave you before the Quell won't last forever," my mother adds with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe I'll get the shot again when I go to Thirteen," I respond.

"Thirteen? When are you going to Thirteen?" my mother asks, her voice suddenly on edge.

"That's what I was trying to tell you." I explain about Boggs and Maya and my promise. I need to see his daughter. I need to fulfill a vow her father will never be able to. My mother is not digesting the news well. I think she'd rather I'd have been pregnant.

"I should go with you," she blurts out.

"No. No," I say quickly. If it's not safe for me there, is doubly not safe for her.

"What are you going to say to Boggs's wife to give her daughter to you?" my mother asks.

"The same thing I did to you," I say without thinking, and with that I feel whatever bridge we had built between us crumble. "Mom, I–"

She drops my hands from hers and stands, patting down her skirt. She crosses to the door. "Sometimes I forget you're still just a girl," my mother says before she closes the door between us. She isn't saying it to be hurtful. She saying it to excuse my words, but later I hear her crying in her room. I pretend I don't, but shame festers inside me. I'm like a child unable to stop picking a scab because there's something satisfying about holding the dead skin in your hand. Bleeding again. But if you pick you can't heal.

I pad down the hallway and knock on her door. She doesn't answer at first, so I knock again. When she opens the door she's clearly just washed her face. It doesn't mask the blotchy spots under her eyes and nose. Her flushed cheeks.

"I've never been good at sorry," I say quickly.

"Katniss, it's fine," my mother dismisses me, but I grab her hand.

"I've never been good at forgiveness either. I've never been good at a lot of things. But I was good at loving Prim," I say. "I can be good at loving you. Just give me a chance."

"I'm so sorry, Katniss," my mother says. She's never said that before. She's never apologized for letting us wither to nothing. But my mom is a different woman now. And so am I.

"Me too, Mom," I say. We hug. It's awkward, but at the same time comfortable. She smells like lavender tea. She smells like soap. She smells like my mom. It makes all my muscles release and my heart slow. When her hand strokes my hair I let myself sink into her chest.

Peeta trudges his way into my room well after I've gone to bed. His skin is burned from too many hours in the sun; his clothes greasy and caked in dirt. He moves slowly. I'm not sure whether he means to be silent or if he can't bear to move any faster than that. When he sees me shift in bed a mix of guilt and happiness slips across his face.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," he says in a hushed whisper.

"I wasn't sleeping," I respond.

"I'm just going to shower. I'll be right to bed," Peeta says back.

"Did you eat?" I ask.

"No," he replies. Peeta showers and I make him a sandwich and a cup of mint tea. He eats it ravenously at the end of our bed.

"I like this," he says.

"The sandwich?" I ask.

"Coming home to you," Peeta answers.

"Me too," I reply. He drinks the mint tea and sinks into the bed, his head on my chest, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist. I feel him drifting but I can't help it when the words slip out of my mouth. "Peeta?"

"Hm?" he responds, his eyes still shut.

"Do you want kids someday?" I whisper.

"Yeah," he answers, squeezing me tight and then relaxes his arms again. I watch his face – slack and peaceful. "But I want you more."

I don't know how to respond, but by the time the words are in my mouth he's already asleep.


	13. Chapter 13 - The Same Song

The train is the same one we've always had, but it's almost like a distorted, rundown version of its former self. Keeping up with aesthetics is not a priority in the new Panem. The train is clean, yes, but its ornateness has been stripped away. There are no flowers, no shiny knobs or automatic sinks. No chef, no magazines. No wasted resources of any kind. I don't need any of that anyway. It's still familiar though. It's still ours. I sit in the last car and watch the world rush away from me.

"Is it weird that this sort of feels like home?" Peeta asks, leaning against the doorframe. I remember him saying something similar as we barreled helplessly toward the Quarter Quell.

"No," I say softly, resting my chin on my knees, not shifting my eyes from the disappearing pine.

"What are you thinking about?" Peeta asks, maintaining his post at the door.

"Rue," I answer honestly. Peeta doesn't press. As we race toward Maya I think of the little girls I've let down. I've let go. That I've lost. Rue. Prim. The red-headed Avox girl. Stabbed and blown-up and tortured. What am I doing?

"Can I sit with you?" Peeta asks. I nod. He takes a spot on the bench beside me, sitting with his legs crossed. He positions a sketchpad on one of his knees and starts sketching. I watch Rue take shape on the page. Her round face, her wide eyes. Peeta lost so much in the hijacking, but he remembers her so specifically.

"I forgot her nose turned up like that," I whisper, resting my chin on his shoulder. Peeta smiles a little. When he finishes he props the paper up and lets me take it in. "Rue was clever," I say wistfully. "She was such a clever girl." A memory of her rushes forward, so potent I can feel her tiny hand pressed against my cheek as she whispered a scheme in my ear. "Can I see that?" I ask. Peeta hands me the paper, watching me. "The pencil too," I add, and he drops the tool in my hand. I set the book to my knee and start writing in the blank space in the margins of the page. I write about her smile. Her wit. Her secrets, but minus the intimate details that would make her blush. I write about how she spoke of her dad – big hands, big heart. How her mom never cried except for one time Rue skinned her knee. How her family was brave. When I finish I stare at the page. "I don't want to forget anything else about her."

Peeta reads what I wrote, smiling. A look of peace seeks out a place on his face.

"We should make a book," I say suddenly.

"What do you mean?" he asks, smirking at my curiously.

"Like my family's plant book, but instead we keep the people we lost inside. So we don't forget. So no one forgets," I ramble. "After we die, and her parents die, and her siblings die…. After everyone that knew Rue dies, the only record of her will be the Capitol archives. Film from the Games, and her interview and… She was so much more than the show she put on for the Capitol. She was a person before she was reaped." I stare at her sketch. I stare at the words I scribbled. "I want her to live in these pages as who she was, not how she left us," I stumble over my words. I don't think I'm making any sense, but Peeta has a serious look in his eyes.

"I'd like that," he finally answers. I feel like a weight is lifted from my chest. A tiny one, barely noticeable until it's gone, but absent now nonetheless. I feel myself heal a little. "Can I do a page for my dad?" he asks in a small voice.

"Yes. Yes! We should do a page for everyone," I answer. The corner of Peeta's mouth smirks just a little. And so the train barrels us away from home, and we sit there, drawing and writing and remembering. We laugh at each other's stories. We erase things and try again until they are perfect. The sun slips out of the sky. At some point I shifted to lying on the floor on my stomach, and I don't realize I've fallen asleep until Peeta shakes my shoulder gently.

"We should go sleep. We'll be at the launch site in a few hours." He's right. The train doesn't go to 13. We are heading to 11 to meet a hovercraft carrying supplies from District 5. Maybe it's because I'm heading to her home, but I spend the night dreaming of Rue. For the first time it's not about the horrors of her death, but rather the smiling, bright little girl that shared my sleeping bag. I dream of her laughing at my face when she placed a chewed up wad of saliva-soaked leaves on my arm. Her soft breath whispering in my ear. Her devious grin. I remember the morning I knotted her hair in a braid out of her face, and she told me we were really allies now.

I wake up just past dawn. I roll over and find Peeta awake, staring at the ceiling.

"Hey," I whisper, curling my body into his. I tuck my knees under his legs and let my face rest on his chest. I hear him breathe. I listen to his heart the way I used to in the cave, eager for each beat.

"Hey," he whispers back, idly bringing his fingers to my hair and playing with it.

"What are you doing awake?" I ask quietly, not wanting to break the reverie of sleep.

"Drawing in my head," he answers. I realize the ceiling is his canvas for his eyes. I roll on my back and stare at it.

"What are you drawing?" I whisper, weaving his fingers in mine. His thumb runs idly on the back of my hand.

"I'm trying to figure out Johanna's eyes," Peeta breathes. Johanna wasn't open. She had layers and layers to dig through. Capturing her on paper won't be easy. "She always looked like the words in her head weren't the words coming out of her mouth," he adds. "I don't know if that makes sense."

"It does," I answer, turning my head and pressing a kiss onto his shoulder.

"They were green," Peeta starts.

"With gold flecks," I finish. He rolls on his side and takes me in. We silently watch each other for a few minutes. His hair has gotten long and nears his eyes. His skin has bronzed in the summer sun. My fingers trace tiny circle on his palms.

"I'm nervous," I spit out, my stomach tied in knots. "I have no idea what to say tomorrow."

"Just tell her the truth," Peeta responds, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. He's right. I have to do this. I won't be able to say goodbye to Boggs until this is done.

The next day is a blur. I want more time to figure out what to say, but before I know what's happening we've left the train, boarded the hovercraft, and landed in 13. We are greeted on the Hangar deck by unfamiliar faces. Many of the leaders of 13 are now in the Capitol building a nation. The people left are strangers to me. Effie's made all the arrangements, but I still feel like I'm walking into a death trap.

Nothing's changed. Even after our liberation, the people of 13 wear plain gray clothes. They all have similar haircuts and perfect posture. Most of the refugees have left, returning to their districts of origin or finding a new place to call home above ground. Those that are left in 13 are natives. They look at me like I don't belong. It's not all of them. In some faces I find gratitude, but in most I find some sort of hostility. A guardedness. They look at me like I'm a wolf in their sheep pen.

Peeta and I hand a slip of paper from Effie to the commanding officer on the deck. He reads it then grunts an order to one of the soldiers at his shoulder. We are lead from the Hangar.

We follow the winding halls of District 13. I generally know where I am, but I can tell Peeta lost his way a long time ago. He didn't spend hours wandering these halls like I did. When we reach the dormitory area, we stop in front of a door labelled 1207. The soldier gives a quick rap on the door and then dismisses himself to a guard position against the far wall. My stomach knots as Peeta shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He looks nervous too, but he's trying to bury it for my sake.

The door opens. I don't know what I expected Boggs's widow to look like. Broken, shattered like my mom maybe. Lost. Instead, the woman that looks down at me seems measured. Calm. She reminds me so much of Boggs it makes my skin hurt.

"Hello, Katniss," she says evenly. She doesn't even seem shocked to see me, or if she is she's hiding it.

I don't know why I am surprised she knows who I am, but I wasn't expecting it. My mouth feels sticky. The speech I rehearsed is stuck in my throat. My tongue feels too big against my teeth and I try not to choke. "Hi," I manage.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. Her voice is almost pleasant, but measured. I try to find some emotion behind it but I can't. It's more analytical than accusatory. I remember Boggs – stoic, calm. Of course I'd find these same traits in his partner. Her jawline is defined. Her skin is smooth across her high cheekbones. Her teeth are as straight as her back. I feel myself slouching and right myself.

"I… I wanted to say how sorry I am," I ramble. My face burns. An apology will only ease the guilt I'm carrying with me. A burden I'm now forcing on a widow, a partnerless mother. I have no right to stand on this woman's doorstep and seek out comfort. I am so selfish. She watches me, perplexed. She doesn't want my pity. We are probably more similar than I realize. Standing in front of her, though, I forget what I'm doing here. All I am is the girl that left her husband to be swallowed by a wave of toxic tar. The one who left him helpless in the street.

"Why don't you come in?" she asks politely. I nod quickly and she steps back, holding the door open for me. I look to Peeta but he squeezes my hand and drops it. I told him I wanted to do this alone, but in this moment I shoot him a panicked look of regret.

"You can do this," he whispers, but I'm dizzy with nerves. "Katniss, just tell her what you told me." He steps back and presses his back against the wall, taking post beside our guard.

I enter Boggs's home. Where he used to sleep. The walls between which he wasn't a soldier. He was a husband. Father. Lover. Friend. Between these walls, he was himself.

At the table in the center of the room, Maya sits scribbling on a piece of scrap paper. Her black hair is interrupted by a streak of bright green. Her mother catches me eyeing it.

"They weren't happy, but I think she looks beautiful," Boggs's wife responds. Maya raises her face to me and smiles before focusing again on her work. She draws a mystic serpent, her pen tracing each individual scale with more patience than I've demonstrated in my entire life. This family isn't broken. When they lost someone, they didn't splinter like my family did. They didn't fall apart. They grew together, like two saplings bracing each other against a wind. "So, Katniss. What are you doing here?" Boggs's wife looks at me critically.

"I, um, well," I sputter.

"Noah never liked indecisiveness," she replies. I know this. I realize I'm slouching again and straighten my back. I take a deep breath.

"When District 13 was bombed, Boggs's saved me. I didn't make it to the bunker and he ran out and brought me to safety. We ended up stuck in a closet all night," I start. Her eyes don't react. She knows this story. She heard it from him. "We talked about our families. All night he talked about you and Maya." A small smile creeps to the corner of her mouth, but when I blink it's gone. "I don't know you, not really. But I feel like I do."

"I feel like I know you too," his wife says. When he was with me he talked about them. And when he was with them he talked about me.

"I was with Boggs when he died," I manage. Maya's pencil pauses on the paper, but she moves it again, although she's clearly listening to us carefully.

"I know," his wife answers. The Capitol showed the footage." So she saw me. She saw me run from him. She saw me leave him before he was consumed by tar.

"I didn't mean to leave him. I mean, I did, but–"

"You didn't have a choice. He was already gone, Katniss," she says. The way my name fits in her mouth strikes me, and I realize it's because everyone else from District 13 calls me Soldier Everdeen. Who is this woman that says my name and dyes her daughter's hair green?

"Did he tell you to run?" she asks. Tears sting my eyes and I nod my head furiously. She smirks. "That's Noah for you." She steps to the sink and pours me a glass of lukewarm water. "He talked about you all the time, Katniss. Noah respected you. He thought you could end the War and he was right." I feel a knot burgeoning in my throat. I try to sip the water. "He told me before he left he wasn't coming home. That he had to deliver you to the Mansion. That was his purpose." Her eyes move away from me and watch her daughter. "We said our goodbyes. We made peace with it."

I don't know what to say. I thought she'd be angry. Compulsive. Broken. But the woman in front of me is anything but. She's resilient.

"I made him a promise," I finally say. "I told him I'd take Maya to the sea." At that, Maya stops pretending not to listen. Her wide, blue eyes shoot toward her mother. "He told me he stole her colored paper. That she imagined what sand felt like. That she would escape from here in her imagination and that when the War ended, he'd help her escape in real life. But at the end he knew he'd never be able to. So I promised him I would."

It's silent for an uncomfortable amount of time.

"We aren't allowed to leave 13," she finally replies. I see Maya deflate.

"What do you mean? The War is over. You are free to go anywhere you want," I answer.

"Thirteen isn't like the other Districts. We need one another to survive. Some of us are permitted to leave, yes, but those that are considered critical to the success of the district have been detained," she explains.

"And you are…. critical?" I ask.

"Yes. I am a botanist. I am designated as essential personnel and therefore we are not allowed to leave." It's the first time I hear any emotion in her tone. Defeat.

"What do you mean detained?" I ask carefully. She stares at the wall.

"We have to stay," she replies evenly.

"Would you stay? If you didn't have to?" I ask meeting her eyes. I find that fire in my belly. I remember the strength that got me through the Games. Through the War. That strength Boggs's had faith in.

"No," she answers honestly.

"I'll be back," I say, every bit of nervousness evaporating from my being. At the door I pause. I turn back to her, looking over my shoulder. "Boggs's told me you were smart. You read books to fall asleep at night. He said you two would dance after Maya went to bed. That you like things neat and he drove you crazy leaving his shoes next to the door. But he never actually told me your name."

She smirks. "Ruth."

"Ruth," I repeat before stepping outside and closing the door. Peeta immediately stands straight.

"How was it? Are you okay? What happened? Is she coming?" he babbles. My stomach feels hot like embers. I stoke the flame until my jaw sets. I turn to our guard.

"Who's in charge?" I ask sternly.

"General Hill," he replies, taken aback by my forcefulness.

"Bring me to them," I respond, not breaking eye contact.

"Those aren't my orders," the soldier retorts.

"That's fine. I served with President Paylor. I'll just give her a call and have her arrange–"

"Right this way," he barks, turning on a heel. I take off after him, Peeta in tow.

"What's going on?" he asks under his breath.

"I found my Mockingjay song," I respond, my sister's words like honey in my mouth. It's the same song it's been all along.

 _Freedom_.


	14. Chapter 14 - Falling into Place

The path to Command is a familiar one. I'm surprised there isn't wear on the floor from my angry footsteps. Peeta's never seen me go off on Coin.

I swing the door open and it slams into the wall, hanging erratically from its hinges. The men at the table jump from surprise. I have no idea who is in charge.

"Which one of you is General Hill?" I demand. One of the men stands up slowly, tugging his jacket down straight. He's very tall with short, cropped hair. His eyes are an icy blue which match his seemingly chilly demeanor. His face doesn't react at all.

"I am," he announces calmly.

"You know who I am?" I ask, my voice even. Peeta stands silently behind me, but I can feel him tensing.

"I do," he responds.

"How many people are you holding in this district involuntarily?" I ask with obvious vitriol. I am seething.

"Frankly, Miss Everdeen, that's none of your concern," General Hill replies. _Miss_ Everdeen. Apparently I've lost my soldier status. He's trying to throw me. He doesn't know what he's up against.

"It is my concern when we've fought and sacrificed for freedom and then you force people into labor and don't permit them to come and go as they choose," I spit back.

"District 13 is a complex space. We need the ability to defend Panem. It takes people," he answers.

"Then you allow them to work here on voluntary tours," I retort.

"There are only so many skilled people to do these jobs," General Hill answers.

"What are you doing to solve that? Do you have a training program? Incentives for people to come here and learn these trades?" I ask. I'm regurgitating what I've heard before. Gale wanted to come here after the War to learn machinery. He had a whole idea about what a post-despotic Panem would look like.

"We have the people we need here," he answers.

"You are forcing people to stay! Children!" I bark out. The general has reached the end of his patience.

"I don't need to listen to you. Maybe Panem was entranced by your spell, Miss Everdeen, but those of us in District 13 are not that gullible. I've witnessed your temper tantrums before. I never understood why President Coin let you get away with such insubordination. Get her out of here," he gestures to our guard.

Before I know what I'm doing I take a phone off the wall and shove the receiver in Peeta's hand.

"Call Plutarch," I order. Peeta looks at me, confused, but punches numbers into the keypad and hands me back the phone.

"Plutarch, it's Katniss," I say. On the other end of the line I imagine I hear Plutarch's jovial greeting. Instead, I hear my mother, confused. I don't listen though. I just stare at General Hill, whose mouth hangs slightly agape.

"Look, I know I told you I wasn't interested in doing any more TV spots, but I think I could be convinced otherwise. I have a story to tell," I say evenly, my eyes never leaving the leader of District 13. I imagine Plutarch on the other end of the line, prattling over mother asks if I'm in trouble, but instead I pretend I hear Plutarch's voice telling me he knew I'd come around. I remain cold, staring at Hill viciously. Hill's skin is turning so red I can see it under his thinning hair. He's so furious he's actually shaking in place. Coin would have been harder to manipulate. This man doesn't have her ruthless spine.

"Enough!" he finally barks out.

"I'm going to have to call you back," I say before I hand the phone to Peeta, who watches me in amazement as he hangs the receiver up in its cradle.

"What do you want?" General Hill spits out.

"I want a program put in place to start moving those that want to leave out of Thirteen. I want this base run on voluntary tours with livable wages. I want you to share your knowledge with the other districts in Panem so we can more efficiently farm food and clean water. You can't do that if you keep all your scientists and tradespeople locked underground," I state. I remember standing at this table listing off my demands to be their Mockingjay. Nothing ever changes. "And I want the Boggs family released immediately."

I see the general grumble words to a subordinate at his side. The man shakes his head quickly. Hill turns back to me.

"And then you'll leave?" he asks.

"Yes. But I want weekly progress reports sent to me and President Paylor. And if I find out you aren't holding up your end of the deal, I have a nation of people backing me that will be screaming for your removal. Got it?" I say sharply.

"Bring Miss Everdeen to the dormitory and return her entire party to the Hangar," General Hill orders, his voice dripping with spite and reluctance.

"Soldier Everdeen," I assert.

" _Soldier_ Everdeen," he corrects himself.

We follow the guard out of the room and back toward the dormitories. Peeta quickens his pace to keep you with me, and slips his hand in mine, whispering into my ear, "So _that's_ the Mockingjay?"

A half smile creeps on my face. "Yeah. That's the Mockingjay."

When we reach Boggs's room I rap the door quickly with my knuckles before stepping inside. Maya and Ruth look up at me. I can tell Ruth is more than a little surprised to see me back here.

"You need to pack. You don't have much time. We leave the Hangar in thirty minutes," I announce.

"Really?" Maya squeaks out, leaping into the air. A smile overtakes her face that makes her eyes sparkle.

"Yes really," I say back. Ruth approaches me with a calm joy radiating from her body. She envelops me in a hug and I let myself melt into her. I imagine Boggs here with us.

"Thank you," his wife whispers in my hair.

"Hurry up," I reply, breaking out of the hug. "I'll see you up there."

I exit the room to allow them to pack on their own. Our guard has multiplied. Two stay behind to escort the Boggs family and three more lead Peeta and me back to the Hangar. The one to my left is impatient and brash, shoving us forward. Peeta looks at me but I quickly shake my head no. We can't cause a scene.

"Hey, you got a problem?" I hear a voice echo down the hallway. My eyes follow to its source and I am surprised to see the man with the pointed chin. His injuries have faded, but his jaw remains locked as he watches the guard with quiet intensity.

"She was lost, I was helping her find her way," the guard offers.

"Then you don't mind if I come along?" the man asks. The guard rambles for a moment, but the man with the pointed chin takes a position at my left and starts to walk with us. "You okay?" he asks under his breath. I nod.

The Boggs family arrives in the Hangar shortly after we do. Their possessions are meager, the whole of their belongings shoved into one duffel bag. We load the hovercraft. As we take off I watch Maya's eyes grow wide. She's never been outside the compound before. She's never seen the sun. She blinks and smiles back up at her mother, who runs a gentle hand across her hair.

"I think I'm going to ask my mom to meet us in District 4," I tell Peeta as I watch the two of them.

In District 11 Maya wants to see and touch and smell everything. Moving from the hovercraft to the train turns out to be a whole ordeal as we try to pull her away from running her hands over the grass.

"This smells like it's alive!" she exclaims as her mother drags her to the train by her elbow.

"The trip will take a few days," I tell them as Peeta and I escort them to their room. "It can get a little stir crazy, but it's not so bad."

"We don't get stir crazy," Ruth answers honestly.

"Right," I say. "Well, um, there's a kitchen but it's up to us to fend for ourselves." At that comment I see Ruth stiffen just a little. I realize everyone in 13 has their specific role. She probably doesn't know how to cook. She's eaten in a cafeteria every meal of her life. "We're going to make dinner around six if you want to join us."

Ruth gives a gracious smile and we leave them alone to unwind. The days move quickly. Maya spends most her time the in last car, imagination churning as the world moves around her. She sits with a sketchpad and draws trees and lakes and animals. Peeta draws with her, too, and one night Ruth and I have to confiscate their books before they acquiesce and come to bed.

Before we know it we've arrived in the district by the sea. Effie has made accommodations for us in some of the empty homes in Victor's Village. Unlike district natives, Ruth and Maya don't see any issue staying in a Victor's home. There is no fanfare at the train station. No one knows we are coming. As we get closer to the Village, excitement wins me over and my feet spring. I start to run, leaving my bag splayed out on its side. _Fourth house on the left, fourth house on the left._ When I reach the door I'm surprised to find myself on an identical porch to mine own, the wooden door an exact image. My fist slams on the door.

I hear bustling inside. A baby's cry. The door swings open. The man before me is wearing a tee shirt and shorts. A dirty towel is slung over his shoulder and his shirt is smudged with some kind of green mush I can only assume is blended peas. His hair is messy and too long.

I feel like I'm going to burst from my skin.

"Finnick," I pant, out of breath from the run. His jaw drops open and a pacifier slips from his fingers. I smile. "Hi," I say, but he doesn't say anything back, he just sweeps me into his arms. I can feel his grin on my cheek. He squeezes me so hard I think my bones might break. "Hey," I laugh out, rubbing my hands on his back but he refuses to let go. He just rocks us back and forth slowly as if he's not sure I'm really here, if I'm going to stay. When he sees Peeta approaching the house Finnick nearly launches himself from the porch and runs to him.

"Annie!" he calls out haplessly into the house over his shoulder as he slams into Peeta, nearly knocking him over. When Annie reaches the door, an enormous smile breaks across her face. She's more put together than Finnick, although the same black circles hang under her eyes.

"Katniss!" she says, smiling and grabbing my hands. She looks calmer than I've ever seen her. I wonder if the voices in her head have subsided. If the turmoil has pacified with the end of the War.

Annie looks over my shoulder and sees Peeta on the lawn. She remains latched to one of my hands and yanks me along with her down the steps until she reaches Peeta. Her eyes glisten with tears as her fingers gently push a piece of hair out of Peeta's eyes. She wraps her arms around his neck and drops her body into him. A relief washes over Peeta's face from a stress I didn't realize was there.

He worries about her. Since their captivity in the Capitol, he worries. Every moment he doesn't know how she is, he worries. They speak on the phone all the time, more than Finnick and me, but I hadn't realized Peeta wasn't breathing until I see him exhale now.

"Hey Annie," he whispers into her hair, and I realize she's crying.

"What are you doing here?" Annie chokes out. She wipes her hands across her cheeks. Her brilliant red hair hangs wildly around her face and she sweeps it back with her hands into a messy bun on top of her head.

Peeta smiles at her and I realize something finally feels right.

Like it's fallen into place.


	15. Chapter 15 - Hiding Place

When I wake up the bed beside me is empty. I roll on my side and notice that Peeta left the window open. The sheets here are crisp and cool and new still. At home, I hardly ever wash my sheets when left to my own volition. I pull the smooth white linen over my nose and close my eyes. I want to sleep more. I want to feel new like these sheets. Instead, I pad downstairs to find Peeta pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven. Effie had the kitchen stocked with supplies before our arrivals.

"Morning," he smiles, a curl falling in front of his eyes.

"Morning," I say back, my voice still gravelly from the cobwebs of sleep.

"Tea?" Peeta asks as he sets a mug in front of me. He's cracked the window in the kitchen, too. The smell of salt and sea slips into the room and reminds me we aren't at home, even if this box we are staying in looks exactly the same as ours. Peeta catches me staring at the window. "I like how it smells here. There's no coal in the air."

He's right. When I think of District 12, I think of pine and decaying leaves and the smell of the forest, but those confined only to the district itself had their life coated in coal. It's not a mystery that many of our men and women suffered from black lung. It's dissipated some since the mines aren't operating. It doesn't hang in the air like it used to. It doesn't cake our dishes, our hair, the street, the snow. The smell of lilac trees and grass have started sneaking into District 12 with a beautiful subtlety. It's coming to life. But the potency of the sea here in 4… there is no escaping the feeling of salt on your lips.

I wrap my hands around the cup and let the hot water warm my fingers. I watch silently as Peeta washes a bowl in the sink. His shoulders flex and I can see the muscles of his back moving through the thin cotton of his tee shirt. My eyes flutter shut and in a flash I see him broken in front of me, lying on the floor of his cell. Leg gone, hair matted in congealed blood, breath shallow. I remember how cold his skin was. It haunted my sleep for weeks. He was supposed to be hot, like a furnace, and feeling him cold under my fingertips make my stomach rot. I saved a corpse. I get up from the stool and wrap my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my chest into his back. I lean my cheek against him and feel him hot on my skin.

"Hey, what's that for?" he asks with a happy hum in his voice. We don't touch much outside of our bedroom. I've never been easy with my affection. I think I've hugged more people in the last week than I've hugged in my entire life. Peeta tries to turn to face me but I squeeze my arms tight and lock him in place. I don't want to lose this moment of him in the kitchen. I want to nurture this image so the next time I close my eyes and see his body burning next to mine, I can find this happy place instead.

"I'm in love with you," I whisper quietly into his shirt. I don't say it enough. Hardly at all. He lets it sit in the air, not wanting the moment to pass.

"I'm in love with you too," he whispers back sincerely, running his hands along my forearms wrapped tightly around his waist.

The moment ends when the Odair family comes bustling through our front door unannounced. I hear Finnick making animal noises and the belly laugh of a baby. Annie is giggling while she juggles the infant and a large bag overflowing with diapers, formula, bottles…

"Everdeen!" Finnick calls out, slapping his bare feet against the wooden floor. When he finds us Finnick's face breaks out into a devilish grin. "Come on, we're going."

"Going where?" I ask, crossing my arms in front of my chest. I'm barely dressed. I'm wearing a thin sleeping shirt that ends halfway down my thighs, a pair of light panties, and nothing else. My cheeks flush I curse my fickle body.

"Not knowing is half the fun," Annie says, sliding Jo into my arms. The baby turns to me with wide eyes. He's a perfect combination of his parents. His hair is strawberry but so light and soft I can barely see it. His eyes are sea green. I'm not uncomfortable around infants. I spent hours with Posy wrapped in my arms every other day. Even though she was only a few years younger than me, I remember when Prim was so small she curled into my lap. I make a face and Jo smiles unabashedly, blissfully unaware the world is cruel.

I catch myself. The world _was_ cruel. But it isn't anymore. This is why we fought the War. Jo will never know hunger. He will never have his name etched onto a slip of paper and tossed in a reaping bowl like he's another meaningless statistic and not a child.

"I can't just take off. I need to go see Ruth. I have obligations," I ramble, but Finnick makes a disapproving hiss.

"I've already been over there. Ruth said she wants a day to settle in. Explore the district with Maya. Find her bearings," Finnick replies.

"Or she said whatever she had to to get you out of her kitchen," I grumble back. I'm sure he's right though. Ruth is measured. She's not going to follow some sun-kissed man on a mysterious adventure. She'll want some direction, some confidence before she explores any further beyond her comfort zone.

"Come on, Katniss. Pretty please?" Finnick asks, his bottom lip pouting.

"Okay," I finally acquiesce and he literally bounces with happiness. "You're pathetic," I add as I head upstairs to change.

Finnick cuts along a rocky path, leading the way. The sea sand is slippery on top of the stone. I keep an eye trained on Peeta, but he seems to manage alright. Annie moves gracefully, as if she could walk this uneven path with her eyes closed and still find her way. Ahead is a large swath of prickly looking bushes, their roots clutching at the stone. This must be where we stop, but Finnick gestures for us to follow him. As we wrap around the bush I see a gaping hole in the back, pressed against a ledge and hidden from sight. He lifts a loose branch with one hand and gestures for us to crawl through. Annie has swathed the baby to her chest and he seems familiar with this trip as she crawls through, one arm around Jo. When we come out the other side, it's as if we are entirely alone. As if there is no District 4. As if it's just us, these rocks, and the sea crashing below.

"This is Annie's hiding spot. It was the only place we could be together before the War," Finnick says. It's beautiful. There are warm tidal pools, entire tiny ecosystems of their own, oblivious to the battles that burned around them. I imagine Finnick and Annie, Finnick returned from some stint at the Capitol where he'd been tossed between aristocrats like a doll. I imagine him hiding here, never wanting to come out. Annie stroking his hair the way she does Jo's now, cooing and comforting but unable to truly fix anything. But here he felt safe. This was his only reverie. It's why he wanted to share it with us.

"I have a place like this. Out in the woods, beyond the fence," I tell him, squeezing his hand.

We spend the afternoon eating cold sandwiches and tackling the waves. Peeta gets knocked over hard and comes up sputtering salt water with a smile on his face.

"This is a lot harder than Thom's pond," he coughs. Annie slips Jo into Finnick's arms and heads down the beach to help him. I plop down beside Finnick, squeezing the sea water from my hair. We watch as Annie glides elegantly on the crest of a wave, and as Peeta tumbles head over foot trying to do the same. They both laugh and the sound carries up the beach.

"You're smiling," Finnick teases, nudging my shoulder with his own.

I know.

At the house we eat a dinner of white fish and greens. Finnick sips a glass of cold water as Annie and Peeta bicker playfully in the kitchen. Annie goes upstairs to put the baby down and comes back with a sheet and some sharp metal scissors.

"Sit," she commands, pointing at a kitchen stool.

"Oo, better do it, Mellark. She's got her mom voice on," Finnick kids.

Peeta sits on the stool and Annie wraps the sheet around his shoulders. She gently runs her fingers through his hair, her eyes closed. She gets to know the feel of it. How it curls, where it ends. After a moment, opens her eyes and begins snipping at his locks with the shears. Flaxen bits of hair fall to the floor or rest on his nose.

She leaves it longer than Portia used to, but he looks less ragged now.

Annie sweeps the floor and curls into Finnick, resting her head on his lap. She's only closed her eyes for a moment before she's asleep. I imagine sleep is precious and not found often enough in a home with a baby. Finnick studies her face, gently knotting and unknotting a lock of her hair.

"This is what Mags wanted for me," he says without looking up. He attempts to clear his throat quietly without disturbing his sleeping wife. "When Mags volunteered, she knew about the rebellion. She was hoping I'd make it out of the Arena. That eventually I'd find my way back to Annie." He sits pensively for a moment, taking Annie in. "I've never loved anything more than I love Jo. I don't know how parents did it. How they didn't just die from grief when their children didn't return from the Games." He lets out a shaky breath. "I think that was part of why Mags did what she did. She couldn't see bearing the grief of losing one of us in the Arena."

I think back to the weeks following Prim's death. A time when I vacillated between unendurable grief and insatiable anger. I willed myself to die. I let my body rot away, my hair knot and mat, my skin turn ashen and gray. I look up at Peeta. His nose is burned from the beach sun. I remember how he pulled me from that grief, even though I was unwilling, just by being present.

We spend the next hour talking about Johanna. We wake Annie up with our laughter, and by the time Peeta and I make our way home the sun is peeking on the horizon.

We drop into bed, but we don't sleep. I kiss his salty skin and tug at his short hair. He presses my back into the mattress and whispers devotions in my ear as we rock together. I finally drift off, my face pressed against this chest, sweaty and exhausted.

I don't hate salt in the air.


	16. Chapter 16 - Stories

My mother arrived on the train late that evening. When she reached in Victor's Village, however, she didn't join me and Peeta. She asked if she could stay with Ruth.

"I think some of the lessons will be easier coming from me," my mother advised. She's probably right. Everything is new to Ruth and Maya. They've never cooked food. Never done laundry. Never washed dishes. Never darned clothes. They don't know how to sanitize a cutting board after butchering an animal. They don't know how to shop in the market or what they'll need when they get there.

What Ruth can do, however, is garden.

"You'll never be able to grow anything in that," Finnick told her one morning as she dug a bed in the yard outside her house. "There's too much sand in the soil."

She didn't respond, she just stoically continued to dig, then unwrapped the bundle next to her. A dozen shiny silver fish lay on the cloth. She buried the fish next to the vegetable seed she'd planted before she stood and wiped her knees clean. Finnick just stared at the ground, puzzled.

"Are you growing a fish bush? There are plenty in the sea," he joked.

Three days later the ground was covered with happy green sprouts.

"How did you do that?" Annie asked as she ran her hands gently over the seedlings. The people of District 4, while wealthier than those in 12, also had their struggles. There were hungry bellies at night. Generations had tried to grow food and failed.

Ruth started explaining about nitrogen and soil and phosphorus, but she sensed she's lost her audience. "The plants need something to eat," she said simply. We all nodded in wonder.

"Maybe you could show some others in town? The Capitol supplies are scarce in Four. Other districts have more need…" Finnick asked softly.

A small smile crept up on her face.

She's not as useless as she feels.

Each day she and Maya grow more comfortable. They're more open. Their smiles come easier.

"I'm going to be a vegetarian," Maya announces at dinner, pushing the meat aside on her plate. I can feel my jaw hang open. People from the districts don't reject food.

"What's a vegetarian?" I ask.

"It means I don't eat animals," Maya states. "Killing animals is wrong."

I scoff. Audibly. My mother shoots me a stern look. Finnick starts laughing uncontrollably. He tries to bury it. Annie shoves an elbow between his ribs, to which he exclaims "ow" through his continued snickering.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he wheezes. "But did you see Katniss's face?"

"But if the plants eat fish, aren't you in a sense still eating fish?" I ask. This gives Maya pause. She stares at her plate.

"Katniss," my mother scolds under her breath.

Luckily I'm saved by Jo, who starts fussing and drawing everyone's attention away. I watch Maya, though, as she straightens her napkin. Cleans up dinner. Talks like she's one of the adults. The whole point of bringing her to District 4 was to let her imagination run free, and instead we've drilled into her how to wash dishes. Instead I've mocked her.

That night we all sit around a fire in the backyard. Maya is off by herself, sketchpad in her lap.

"Can I sit here?" I ask. She nods without looking up. She keeps her eyes trained on the paper, but I can see them stinging with tears. I sit beside her. I feel rotten over hurting this sensitive girl, like my skin might revolt and slink away from my body. "You aren't like your mom, huh?" I say. She doesn't react. I scoot closer. "I'm not like my mom either."

"Nice?" she asks pointedly.

"That's fair," I answer. Maya's eyes shift and I can tell she's watching me in her periphery. "I've never been particularly nice. But I've always been good with kids. I think the issue, Maya, is that you're not a kid anymore."

At that Maya sets down her pencil and looks at me with her dark brown eyes. It feels like her father.

"I think you stopped being a kid a long time ago. You had to grow up too soon. So did I," I say. A breeze off the sea catches her hair, which moves gently in the wind. "When I lost my dad, I had to grow up real fast. But things are different now. Your dad died so you can be a kid as long as you want. He'd want you to be happy. He'd want you to let this burden go."

"I don't want to be tiptoed around," Maya says. "You all treat me like I might break at any moment."

"I don't," I respond, and Maya pauses. She realizes I'm right. I'm not censoring myself around her. I know what it feels like to be "handled." No one likes that. Her anger toward me melts a little. I seize the opportunity. "What are you drawing?"

Maya leans over and lets me look at her sketchpad. She shows me yesterday's drawings too. She's actually really good for her age and lack of experience. Peeta drops down beside us and she shows him too. He points out some things – try shadowing here with the side of your pencil, try drawing this in perspective to that. Maya does as he says and even I can see her sketches taking shape.

"You're a very talented girl, Maya," Peeta says. She blushes and he squeezes her shoulder with his hand before looking over at me. "I'm tired. I'm heading back to the house for bed."

"I'll come," I say back, leaving Maya to whatever her imagination has to offer. Finnick jumps to his feet and walks us back. We end up lingering in the kitchen, but eventually Peeta gets too tired and he heads upstairs. Finnick and I sit on the kitchen stools and drink herbal tea.

"Can I ask you something?" I start, my tone more serious than the carefree conversation we were having a moment ago.

"Yeah," Finnick says, clearing his throat and turning on his stool so he can face me.

"When I went to prison, Haymitch and Peeta were sent to Twelve," I start.

"Kicking and screaming," Finnick adds, a smirk on his face.

"How is it you stayed?" I ask.

"Oh we lied. Had one of the doctors say Annie couldn't travel while pregnant," he says, a devious half grin on his face.

"But why would you do that? You didn't know I'd be getting out," I say.

"I promised Peeta I'd stay," Finnick says.

"He would never ask you to do that," I respond quickly. Not with the baby.

"He didn't have to," Finnick says. I look at him. "I don't know, Katniss. I just… We couldn't leave you there alone. Peeta and Haymitch weren't really given a choice. The public didn't want either of them in the Capitol. There was still a lot of suspicion from Thirteen about their involvement in Coin's death. And when Peeta was caught on camera leaving Paylor's office, the media went crazy, like Paylor was part of the plot or something," Finnick explains. I remember Haymitch telling me Peeta wouldn't leave Paylor's door after my imprisonment. That it was almost a month before she finally let him in to talk, to plead for mercy. To beg her to free me. "Paylor asked him to leave. That she'd only consider his words if he did. But Annie and I… after everything… We couldn't leave you there alone."

"You didn't have to do that," I say quietly.

"It was the only way Peeta would leave. Haymitch literally had to drag him to the train," Finnick says. I can picture it. "I still can't believe Paylor let you out. I think she knew what happened to you was wrong, and she had to do the right thing regardless of the consequences. It drew a lot of negative attention in the press, but then her favorability ratings went up eight points nationwide. No one in the districts was happy about your verdict. Everyone else still thought you were the savior of Panem," Finnick says.

I'm quiet for a while, contemplating my tea. Paylor let me out even though it meant near political suicide. Finnick and Annie lived in a place they hated because they knew somewhere behind cement walls, I was there too. Peeta threw himself at the mercy of a government he couldn't trust.

"I think Paylor was pretty surprised when the rest of the country called her a hero," Finnick says, watching my face. I look up at him.

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says, his smile soft. I fold my arms on the counter and rest my head, facing Finnick. He mirrors me. I know I brought it up, but the talk of my imprisonment forces it to the forefront of my memory, and when I close my eyes I see the darkness of my cell. I feel pain when I breathe.

"One night Peeta and I hatched a crazy plan to break you out," Finnick whispers. He gets me to smile.

"Oh yeah?" I whisper back.

"Yeah. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?" he teases.

We talk for hours, long after the fire has died down in the backyard and the rest of our family has gone to bed. Finnick talks about Jo, about Annie. About a boat he's building. About showing Maya the best places to find sea glass. I tell him about Haymitch's geese. About hunting. About the service we had for my sister after my mom got back.

"It was small, just me and Mom and Peeta and Rye," I say. "In Twelve, when you lose someone you love, you write them a goodbye letter and you put it in their pocket. When Gale died, Posy didn't know how to write yet so she drew him a picture. But I just… I couldn't do that for Prim. I couldn't say goodbye to her. It's not like she was there anyway." My voice catches in my throat. Her body wasn't recovered. There wasn't _enough_. The grave was for us. "Peeta stayed up with me all night and I just told him stories about her. Finally, I scribbled _I love you_ on a piece of paper. But it was okay, because there were a million words behind it, and Prim knew that. We had the service. It was quiet and pretty. Rory dug up a bunch of wildflowers and buried them at her stone. My mom made it through the whole thing. Peeta dug a hole and we buried our notes."

"And then what?" Finnick asks. I just stay quiet. I don't know why, but I suddenly remember that night in the apartment, during the War. When he comforted the Leeg sister. She had no body to bring home to their father. When confessed Finnick lost his brother to the sea.

"What was it you told Leeg?" I ask.

"You heard that?" he replies.

My face burns red in shame. "I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep."

He gives me a lopsided smile. "It's okay, Kat. I said…" He thinks. "Your sister died doing what she believed was right. And it's not diminished by the fact that you can't bring her home. It just makes her sacrifice that much more noble. You should be proud of her."

"Right," I say. "I miss Prim," I add plainly.

"I know," Finnick says.

"I miss her more here. It's harder for me. At home it's like she's everywhere and sometimes it's too much, but at least I get a little piece of her. She's not here at all," I confess. Finnick's eyes get sad, but he reaches his hand out and squeezes mine.

"I think it's time you went home."


	17. Chapter 17 - Home Again

Ruth and Maya accompany us to the train station, along with Finnick and Annie. We say our goodbyes. Ruth isn't able to articulate what she wants to say, but I see her gratitude in her eyes, in the way she smiles at Maya.

"Thank you," she whispers to me. I kneel down to Maya and tussle her hair. She squirms, but then she shoots forward and wraps her arms around my neck.

Finnick and Annie arrive late and almost miss the train departure.

"I swear, I don't know how anyone shows up on time to anything with a newborn," Finnick grins, taking baby Jo from his wife and cuddling him in his arms. Peeta squeezes Annie tight, the anxiety of being away from her creeping up on him again.

"Call every day," she says, and he nods into her mane of red hair.

Finnick hands the infant to my mom and wraps his arms around my waist, lifting my feet off the ground for a moment. "Maybe I'll show up in Twelve and surprise you," he whispers. I smile. When we finally let go, Finnick takes Jo from my mother and I take a look at what we've built here. Annie weaves her fingers in Finnick's hand, leaning her head on his shoulder as Jo grabs her hair and knots it in his fist. Maya waves with one hand, her sketchbook tightly clasped in the other. Ruth stands with a new confidence I didn't see in 13. It feels… right.

The three of us turn to board the train.

"Wait," my mother says, her hand on the rail. I look at her questioningly. "I–" She clears her throat and looks up. "I want to stay." A pit opens in my stomach. My mom wants to stay. It makes sense. Her life is here. The hospital. Her friends. The only thing for her in 12 is… me. I try to bury the hurt but I can feel it in my eyes, betraying me. I look at her. She doesn't find comfort in the pieces of Prim I cling to. Twelve isn't her home anymore. For her it's agony.

"Okay," I say, although it feels more like breathing than speaking. The conductor rings the bell, meaning get on or get off. We don't even have time for a goodbye. My mother grabs my hand and steps back on the platform.

"I love you," she says, but the train starts moving and our hands break apart. I watch her get smaller and smaller until I realize the words never left my mouth. _I love you too._

I turn from the door and walk to my room. Peeta follows me in silence until we enter the compartment and I slam the door.

"Do you want space?" he asks gently.

"No I don't want space!" I nearly yell, and I realize I'm seething with anger. I can't contain it. I pace furiously. Peeta sits quietly. I don't want him to try to placate me, and he knows it. He lets me rage until I run out of fumes, and finally I drop to the ground and sob. The angers slips out of me but the grief is unwelcome. It's not like the other times I've cried, when I tried not to. When I tried to feel nothing at all. This feeling of loss, of abandonment, overtakes me. I rock on my knees. Peeta sits beside me and strokes my hair. He gets a cold washcloth and cleans my face. He stays until I'm quiet.

"Why is it she never wants me?" I ask. I sound like a little kid. I sound pathetic.

"That's not it, Katniss," he says, scratching my back. I scowl and turn away from him.

"I don't care anymore," I say, wiping the tears from my eyes. "She hasn't been my mom in a long time. I haven't needed a mom in a long time." It would sound more convincing if my eyes weren't red and puffy. I'm a mess.

"I want you," he says, his voice low. "And so does Rory. And Haymitch. And Rye. And even Delly."

"Great," I hiccup sarcastically, and Peeta chuckles. I wipe my face and force myself up off the floor.

We spend the afternoon and early evening distracting ourselves from those we left in District 4. I find a book in the study and plant myself in the last car, reading. Peeta draws in his sketchpad, although I catch him dozing to sleep much of the afternoon. We make dinner. We settle into our compartment for the night. I spend too long in the shower. I realize that when it's wet, my hair is finally skimming my shoulders. I run a towel over my wet locks and brush my teeth. Peeta's sitting on the toilet lid, making an adjustment on his leg. He catches me staring.

"Done," I say, and he smiles and gets up to brush his teeth. As he passes me he brushes my hand quickly with his, and I realize this is the best part of us. The boring part. The monotony. The routine. Being with Peeta is comfortable. I lean on the frame of the door and watch as he spits toothpaste in the sink. He looks up at me with a half smile.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Watching you," I answer.

"Yeah?" he asks, joining me in the door frame. He leans forward and kisses me sweetly, my back pressed against the door. "Bed?"

I nod.

The train ride takes a couple days. We spend time just the two of us. Talking, drawing. My head in his lap, his hands in my hair. The closer we get to home, the more at ease I feel. When the train arrives Rory is waiting in the station. It's cold in District 12. The sharp bite of air hits us when we leave the train, and I catch Peeta pull his collar up around his neck. We're both so sensitive to cold after the explosion. When the flames licked our skin with heat, we somehow lost the ability to stay warm. Rory doesn't notice and immediately starts rambling on about hunting plans. He grabs one of our bags and walks us up to the village.

"Hi Rory," a girl says as we pass her, a smile wide across her face.

"Oh, hey," Rory replies with a voice a little deeper than it normally is. He avoids her eyes as she blinks at him before continuing on her way.

"Rory Hawthorne, who is that?" I tease, looking over my shoulder, although I know immediately who she is. She's a transplant from District 7. The girl is very pretty. She has orangey-red hair and a nose peppered with freckles. Her skin is pale and her eyes are a mossy green. There aren't a lot of non-12 natives living here, but there are some and they stick out like a sore thumb. I met her dad at the worksite. He looks just like her, although his red curly hair is cropped short. The first time I saw him he reminded me so much of Darius it made my chest ache, but that faded the second he opened his mouth. His District 7 accent is thick. Johanna's accent was pretty much absent, but came out whenever she was drunk or high. I listened to the man's story. They fled from the forest fires in District 7 when Snow set the woods ablaze. They lost their home, the rest of their family. They wanted to start over.

"Thought I'd be useful here," he said, expertly fitting two pieces of a wooden frame. "I just want to feel useful again, you know?"

I do know.

Rory watches the orange-haired girl until she disappears around a corner.

"It's no one," he stammers, his olive skin blushed.

"That's not Gideon Wicker's daughter?"

"Is it?" he asks, picking up his pace to our house. Peeta and I exchange a knowing smile.

When we reach Victor's Village Rory drags the suitcase toward my house, but I grab his shoulder and nod my head toward Peeta's. It's Peeta's house that feels like home. It's Peeta's house I want to wake up in. Peeta's has become ours.

"Oh, is your mom gonna have the old house all to herself now?" Rory asks. Peeta gives me a careful look, but I've built another wall. I'm not going to let it hurt me anymore.

"My mother's not coming back. She stayed in Four," I say nonchalantly, as if it didn't wreck my world.

"Oh, that's too bad," Rory replies, taking my casual lead. He knows though. He sees through me the way his brother once did. "Anyways, dinner tonight at our house. Mom made you a welcome back meal."

"Oh really?" I ask.

"Yes. Because I got a turkey in the woods this morning and we're going to need some help eating it," he boasts. Rory leaps off the steps and heads toward home. I look around the village. I can hear honking coming from Haymitch's yard. He's yelling at one of the geese from inside the house. I notice a melodic dinging in the air and find wind chimes hanging on his porch. They draw my attention and I catch a flash of silk curtains in his window.

"Haymitch, please! Your deafening bellow is worse than the geese! Inside voice!" I hear Effie snip at him as she steps out the front door and throws a handful of peas into the yard. The geese quiet their honking and flutter around, pecking for food.

"Welcome home," Peeta says, kissing my check and catching the edge of my smile.

 _Home_.

 **A/N: Sorry for the short chapter. I'm mostly done the next one already so it should be up very soon. Also... I don't know if I have any other Karamel shippers out there, but if I do – what the flying fuck?! I want to throw my TV out the window. Sorry, needed somewhere to rant where people would appreciate my pain. LOL.**


	18. Chapter 18 - Breaking the Seal

We spend our days with the construction crew. We put up the frame for the bakery. We see a lot of Rye, which is great for me but Peeta seems distracted. He gets up early and bakes, brings bread for the crew. Works all day. He takes only enough time to scarf down his lunch and gets back to work again. At night he stares at blue prints and commercial catalogs. He calls vendors about ovens and bakeware. He comes to bed exhausted.

"You need to take a break," I say, rubbing his shoulders as he melts under my hands.

"I will," he promises, but he's up before dawn making cinnamon rolls.

I talk on the phone with Ruth one night while Peeta sketches a floor plan for the shop. The next day I garden with Delly, who has had little success to date. I hand her a bucket of coal ash I collected at the mine.

"What is this for?" she asks as I rake it through the soil. She follows my lead.

"Not too much. You don't want the plants soaking up metal. But just enough to give them something to eat," I answer.

In a week her garden is full of bright green sprouts. She smiles so wide I think her cheeks might break. Maybe she and Rye won't leave after all.

As the bakery takes shape, Peeta's smile comes easier. He's still tired. His hair is a mess. But when he's home he laughs. I'm not even funny, but he smiles and chuckles lightly. He makes hot chocolate on the stovetop. He kisses me with tired, sloppy lips and a half-sided grin.

"Do you think Hazel would work in the bakery?" he asks one night over dinner. He chews his salad as he watches me.

"I don't know," I say honestly.

"I'm going to need someone for the front end. Talking to customers. To help with cleaning, too. Washing the dishes and aprons," he says casually. "Pay'd be good." He sips his water as he tries to read my face. There's an underlying question we're avoiding.

"I can't," I say. I can't work at the bakery. I know it's what he wants. But I can't be inside all day. I can't smile and talk to people. I can't.

He gets up to clear his plate away and when he returns to the table, he leans down and kisses me softly. "I didn't ask you," he whispers in my mouth. "I like when your hair smells like pine and your clothes smell like sweat. You hunt, I bake. That's how it is." He tilts my chair back and kisses me with the steadiness he brings to everything. "What do you think about Hazel?"

"Yeah," I agree, transfixed with his mouth. He smiles against me.

"Good."

It's late by the time Peeta comes upstairs. I'm already in bed, half dozing but too chilled to really fall asleep.

"It's cold tonight," Peeta says, sliding under the covers next to me. "Your skin is freezing," he adds, running his hands quickly up and down my legs to warm them up. For a moment I remember teaching Beetee and Wiress to make a fire. Friction. Heat. But I push the memory away because thinking of Wiress makes me sad and thinking of Beetee makes me angry.

"Can you get me some pajama pants when you brush your teeth?" I ask, my voice hushed in the late night.

"Of course," Peeta says, pulling himself from bed.

"Bottom drawer," I state, and I realize instantly it's a mistake but he's already there. I sit up immediately.

"What's this?" he asks, his voice suddenly serious. He's holding the bundle of letters he wrote me while I was in prison. They're tied together with string in a pretty knot Finnick taught me. I retied it again and again, distracting myself in my cell. Refusing to think about the boy who wrote them. "Are these my letters?"

I don't say anything.

"Are they...? They're not opened," he realizes. The look on his face nearly breaks me. He flips on the light to confirm. "They're not open," he says again in disbelief.

"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," I start, but he just shoots his hand up as if even the excuse hurts. He stares at the bundle in silence for a long time. When he finally speaks he's nearly shaking.

"You lied to me. You lied to me about your vote. And your plan. And your feelings. You lied to me and I never said anything. You never asked for my forgiveness. You never even said you were sorry! You still haven't. Not even now!" he blurts out. He's furious. I don't think I've ever seen him this angry. "You lied to me. After everything Snow did to me, after I worked so hard to tell what was true from what wasn't, you lied. I trusted you, even though every fiber of my being told me not to, I trusted you to tell me what was real and what wasn't and you took that all away."

"Peeta -"

"Don't!" he interrupts me. He starts pacing like he doesn't know what to do with himself. "I was wrecked when they took you. It destroyed me. And you didn't even have the decency to read what I wrote to you? Dammit, I needed you!"

I stare at him. He looks defeated in a way that makes my stomach feel sick.

"I wasn't looking for an apology. I was worried sick. I could hardly sleep. I just wanted you to acknowledge you were alive. I just wanted you to write me. Even one time! Even a single fucking word would have been enough!" he pants.

"I did give you a word," I stammer, and I immediately regret the words out of my mouth.

"Stop! You told me to stop!" he shouts. The pain emanating from his body is so potent I feel like I'm absorbing it into my skin. It fills the room. "You told me to stop without even knowing what I said! This is just... I deserve better than this." He throws the bundle of letters on the bed.

"I know." I try to say, but the words of agreement are stuck in my throat. I do know. I've said forever he deserves better. That he should move on. Find some girl who can love him the way he deserves to be loved. But now he's so deeply ingrained in every part of me that the idea of being apart makes every bit of me hurt. After everything, I'm still that selfish girl.

It's silent for too long. I want to look up at him but I don't dare. The words topple out. "Are you going to leave me?" My voice is so small I barely hear myself. Peeta stares at me.

"What?" he asks, like he can't believe the words coming out of my mouth.

"Is this it? Are you going to leave me?" I repeat. I just... I want to know. Is this irreconcilable? Did I finally break us?

"Of course not," he says, as if my question is ridiculous to the point of offensive. "There is no more of that. There is no more running away from each other."

I am so relieved I take a step forward but he counters back.

"I can't," he says, pulling himself away from me. I will my body to stop. Peeta turns away from me and pulls a pair of pajama pants from the bottom drawer. He hands them to me and locks himself in the bathroom. I grab the letters, get back in bed, and stare at the door, waiting.

It's hours before he comes out. Maybe he's hoping I'll be asleep but I'm not. He removes his leg and slides himself in beside me, careful to keep a barrier of air between our bodies. He rolls away from me. He speaks to the wall.

"I know prison was terrible for you. More than anyone else I can understand that," he says, his tone even. Practiced. Peeta does understand. He went through worse. "I understand that in order to survive you had to let me go."

Tears sting my eyes in the dark. I sacrificed Peeta then, when I made my plan to kill Coin. It's a decision I'd never make now, but I was so utterly destroyed by my sister's death that I couldn't see straight.

"I need you to promise me that there is no more you letting me go. Because what you asked earlier made everything so much worse. You are it for me, Katniss. I'm not leaving you. But you're still ready to walk away," he says carefully.

I'm not sure if he wants me to, but I roll over and curl myself around his body. He lets out a shaky breath. His heart is pounding in his chest like he's just run a marathon.

"No more letting go. Not ever," I promise, kissing his hair lightly. He tries to rollover to face me but I lock my body tight around him. "Not letting go," I whisper playfully.

"Katniss?" he whispers.

"Yeah?" I breathe into the skin of his back.

"When I was in captivity, it made it easier for me to think about you. I'd close my eyes and pretend we were on the beach or in my kitchen or eating cake in bed. Did you really not think about me?"

"I thought about you all the time," I confess. "But it just made it hurt worse."

"I think you should read my letters," Peeta says, his voice still a little unstable.

"Okay," I confirm, pressing a soft kiss on the back of his neck. His shoulders hitch like it tickles, but I just take it as encouragement. I breathe hot air onto his skin, kissing again while rocking my hips forward gently. I slide my hand over his hip until my fingers dip just under the waistband of his sleep shorts. I feel his heat. Peeta sighs and presses his body back into me, his hips rocking into mine. I bite my lip and whimper, and that's when he rolls over and pulls me underneath him. He's hard as he presses himself onto that part of me that makes me sink into the bed. He gently thrusts his hips forward and my legs start to tremor.

"Too much clothing," I mutter, sitting up and pulling his shirt over his head, gliding his shorts over his hips. Our mouths crash together like lovers separated by time and distance, but the only thing separating us this the last year was me. Peeta tugs at my nightshirt and I let him slip it away from my body. His eyes rake over my chest and I wonder if it will ever stop feeling like the first time for him. Like the last.

I press my mouth to his and try to show him it's not. That this night is one of many in a future I didn't think I had. I kiss his chest and work my way slowly down his body, his body trembles lightly each place my lips land. When I pass his stomach Peeta shoots up on his elbows, eyes bulging from his head.

"What are you doing?" he asks, his voice a mix of excitement and panic.

"Kissing you," I repeat the words he said the first time he did this to me.

"Katniss, you don't owe me... that..." he stutters. "I don't want it to be because –"

"This isn't an apology. It's because I love you," I reason before I glide his length into my mouth. He gasps and his entire body shivers as he drops back down to the bed. He keeps his eyes locked on me, like this is some fantastic dream and I might evaporate. I move my mouth down experimentally, mimicking what I normally do with my hands, and Peeta makes a choking sound in his throat. I swirl my tongue around him as my head bobs. He drops to his back and I can feel his entire body squirming underneath me. I clasp his base with my hand and move it along with my mouth as he balls the sheets in his fists. Everything feels wet and he tastes different than I expected but it's not bad. Feeling him against my tongue strokes a longing between my legs that only gets tighter with each noise out of Peeta's throat. I start rubbing myself against his leg as I suck him hard. Peeta shifts himself back onto his elbows and watches me with amazement. He groans and I hear his breath, ecstatic and erotic at the same time.

"I need you," he breathes, pulling me up the bed and hooking his thumb in the band of my underwear, tugging them down my legs. His fingers glide back up, dipping into me. "You're so wet. Did you like that?" he asks with a hint of hope in his voice.

I nod and he grins happily. "I like when you feel good," I breathe, my hips bucking against his hand, trying to satisfy this insatiable want that I nurtured slipping my lips down the length of him and back.

Peeta hitches one of my legs up and buries himself inside of me. We both gasp a little, my fingers digging desperately into his shoulders. He starts thrusting his hips gently, but I rock hard against him. I don't want him to be gentle. I want him to claim me, to let me claim him, to never worry about things between us again.

"You feel so good," he says as his drops his mouth to my neck. He tugs my ear with his teeth before his lips finally find mine. When we kiss like this, while he's inside me, it makes every other sensation feel more intense. Like there's more heat. I gasp against his lips and he tenderly strokes my mouth, pulling my bottom lip gently between his teeth. I open my mouth slightly and he dips his tongue inside. I feel like he's inside me everywhere. I gently suck on his tongue and a moan catches in his throat.

"I'm gonna come soon," he confesses, rocking hard into me.

"Me too, just don't stop," I pant. His body gets stiff and his face twists as he empties inside me. Everything is so wet and his arms tremble but he doesn't stop the furious pace until I come underneath him, clutching his torso like an anchor as I arch my back and finally collapse into the sheets.

Peeta falls beside me, rolling on his back and weaving his fingers in mine.

"Make up sex is good," he whispers, a huge smile on his face. I laugh.

"Make up sex is good," I repeat. His leans over and kisses my temple before collapsing back into the bed.

"I can't move. I think I'm stuck like this forever," he smiles, his eyes closed.

I reach across the nightstand and grab the bundle of letters. I take a deep breath and slip the first one from the pile.

"Katniss you don't have to do that now," he whispers, watching me.

"No, I do. For me," I reply, breaking the seal.

 _Dear Katniss._


	19. Chapter 19 - The Letters

_Dear Katniss,_

 _You've been gone for a day and I already feel like I might lose my mind. Haymitch got me unfathomably drunk last night. I spent most of this morning on his bathroom floor puking in ways I didn't know a human could puke. I don't know how to do this. Everything reminds me of you. Even the taste of alcohol vomit reminded me of our joint night in the bathroom after the card reading. So now I'm sitting at his table, writing you this letter._

 _That was a terrible opener. Don't worry about me. I am fine. Right now you need to focus on you._

 _I know you are probably trying to toughen up. Numb yourself. It's what I did at first too. Just remember there are those of us out here that love you. Not for being the Mockingjay. We love_ you _, Katniss. I hope when you get these letters you know that you are always on our minds. That you didn't just slip from our lives unnoticed. I think about you all the time. We talk about you all the time._

 _How are you? Are they treating you well? What is your day like? Please remember to eat. You need your strength in there._

 _I don't know if I should tell you this. I don't want to give you some kind of false hope, but I'm going to Paylor. I will sleep on her doorstep if I have to, but I'm not leaving until she talks to me._

 _I don't know._

 _Yours always,  
Peeta_

* * *

The next few letters are mostly the same. Peeta tells me about his day. Asks about mine. Asks if I've made any friends. Peeta sleeps outside Paylor's office. He's become pals with the security guard that's supposed to kick him out at the close of business. Peeta brings her cookies in hopes of bribing her. She takes the cookies but not his counsel.

Haymitch tries to stay with him one night but his back cramps. He ends up going back to his room and feeling terrible about himself. Not that he admitted that to Peeta, but it was obvious the next day when Haymitch banged on Paylor's door like a madman until he was cuffed and dragged away. They deposited him in his room with a warning.

There's a whole letter about Annie's pregnancy. He clearly wants to make me smile describing Annie's waddle and Finnick's incessant doting.

Finnick is out schmoozing with the people. Trying to get the public on my side. He doesn't find it difficult. Most people want me released, Peeta says. No one wants the Mockingjay jailed. But releasing me could be political suicide for Paylor. Undoing the first judicial action of our new nation could undermine the foundation of our court system for years to come her advisors tell Peeta.

It's the right thing to do, Peeta always replies.

* * *

 _Katniss,_

 _I got your letter (if you can call it that). Well I have a one word response to your one word demand._

 _No._

 _Peeta_

 _P.S. You're not getting rid of me that easy._

* * *

I jump ahead a few. The next letter I open is a drawing of the Meadow. There's a tiny person off in the distance. I think it's me. I'd have liked this. I would have hung it on my cell wall. I let my fingers trace the sketch until I accidentally smudge the graphite. I set it open on my night stand and go to the next letter.

* * *

 _Dear Katniss,_

 _I didn't want to write you this, but Haymitch is making me. Before you read this, just know that you don't need to worry about me while you are in there. Just focus on you._

 _Last night one of the guards found me sleepwalking. I wasn't triggered or anything. I didn't hurt anyone. But I guess I was totally out of it so they brought me to Haymitch's room and he and Effie tried to ease me back to reality. I don't know why I'm even telling you this. Nothing happened. I'm fine._

 _I just don't sleep without you._

 _I hope you are sleeping, Katniss._

 _Love,  
_ _Peeta_

* * *

The next letter I open is long. Pages and pages. He draws in the margins. I look over and find Peeta is already sleeping beside me. I set that one aside, unread. I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. The one that follows it is short.

* * *

 _K,_

 _Why?_

 _P_

* * *

I stare at the word for a while. I've never offered him why. I've never even offered him sorry. I've just taken more than I given him in return.

* * *

 _Katniss,_

 _I'm sorry about the last letter. I meant it more for me than you. I just figured if I wrote it down I'd feel better, but before my hands even realized what they were doing I'd mailed it._

 _I guess it's out in the open now._

 _I'm mad at you. I don't know how not to be mad at you. But I miss you more. We don't have to talk about it, not ever if you don't want to. I just want to talk about_ something _. Anything. I just want to talk to you._

 _Please write me._

 _Peeta_

* * *

He finally gets to meet with Paylor and is kicked out of the Capitol. He puts a clipping from a newspaper in one envelope. It's an editorial about why the president should pardon me.

* * *

 _Dear Katniss,_

 _I miss you. It goes without saying. I miss you so much._

 _I'm going back to Twelve on the morning train. Instead of sleeping, I'm writing you this letter because I am absolutely panicked about leaving you here. I know you probably feel alone anyway. I don't know if thinking of me nearer to you brings you any kind of comfort at all, but it does me._

 _I'm so sorry. I wouldn't go if I could think of a way around this, but Paylor said if I want her to consider my words I have to do her this favor. Her inauguration is next month and she wants me and Haymitch gone immediately. Annie and Finnick are staying though. We're not abandoning you._

 _I guess we'll know soon._

 _I wish you'd write. I want to know if you are okay. If they are treating you alright._

 _Yours,  
Peeta_

* * *

 _Katniss,_

 _Being home is strange. Everything feels the same, but empty._

 _I'm thinking maybe you're not allowed to write me back. Maybe you can't be trusted with a pencil._

He draws a silly face.

 _I would trust you with a pencil._

 _Love,  
Peeta_

* * *

I stare at the long letter on my lap, unread. I move on to the next one instead.

* * *

 _Dear Katniss,_

 _I rode a bicycle today. One of the kids in town has one. It was pretty ridiculous. I couldn't really feel the pedal with my foot but Delly kept her hands on my seat so I didn't fall._

 _I think I might buy a bike._

 _I want to ask how you are but I don't want you to think I'm forcing anything._

 _I just want you to know that I'm thinking of you and miss you and hope you are OK._

 _Love,  
Peeta_

* * *

I look at the long letter and sigh before I pick it up. I expect it to be about us, about our fight, about my lies, but it's not. It's out of order, too. Clearly he wrote this when he was in 12. I stare at the words.

* * *

 _Dear Katniss,_

 _Today is my mom's birthday. It's weird having a birthday for someone who is gone. I made a cake, which felt good in the moment but then when I frosted it I didn't know what to write on it and suddenly everything about it just felt wrong. Rye came over and wanted to stick a candle in it, but I refused. We had a big fight and he stormed out of the house. I brought it down the Market and made Sae take it._

 _I miss my mom. Maybe it doesn't make sense but I really do. I know she was awful to me. I'm not even sure she loved me at all. But I miss her. I feel like all I do is miss people._

He writes paragraphs about his mom, his dad, his brother. He draws little pictures in the margins – a bundle of cookies, his dad's silhouette, a tiny handprint.

 _Rye refuses to face anything. He just wants to pretend to be happy all the time. Last night he and Delly came over for dinner and he passed out on the couch watching some singing show on TV. (TV has gotten really weird now that it's not all Capitol propaganda, by the way)._

 _Anyway, Delly and I stayed up talking and she said Rye wants to leave 12. He's mentioned it in passing a couple times, dropping hints every once in a while. He pretends like it's Delly. Says she wants to garden and can't do it here, but really it's him. He wants to go._

 _I guess he should be able to if he wants to._

 _I'm just tired of being everyone's last choice._

 _I should go to bed._

 _Peeta_

* * *

I set the long letter down. It makes me sad in such a visceral way. If I'd read any of these, I'd have written back. I just didn't have the strength to read them. I wanted him to move on. I wanted to curl up I in the corner of my cell and die.

There are two letters left. The last one I received in my cell and the one Finnick gave me on the train home.

* * *

 _Katniss,_

 _I made cheese buns out of habit this morning and forced them on Haymitch. He literally won't eat anything but what I am make him. It's like I'm living next to a child. Still no word from Paylor but her inauguration is tomorrow. Maybe something good will happen._

 _I miss you. It's hard never hearing from you. Maybe after tomorrow it will be a moot point anyway. Maybe you'll be here._

 _You're welcome here, you know. If you want to stay, you are welcome here. In case you were wondering where things stood between us. You are welcome here. You are wanted – in my arms, in my home, in my life._

 _I know you aren't one for declarations, Katniss, but I love you now. I love you still. I have always loved you, even when I forgot how. If she lets you - come home to me._

 _And if not, I love you anyway and I'll write you tomorrow._

 _Peeta_

* * *

The last envelope doesn't have a postmark on it. Finnick told me it was from Peeta and I wasn't supposed to open it until I got home.

I rip the seal and slip my fingers inside, but there's no letter. I pull the casing apart and notice he's written on the inside of the envelope.

 _When you are ready, I am too._

There's not letter in this envelope.

It's a ring.

The ring.

My ring.

The last time I saw it was when I looped it around Peeta's neck in Tigris's basement, before we went on the battlefield. I never saw it in the house. I assumed it was another casualty of war, but no. I've had it this whole time. And it hasn't been on my hand so Peeta's assumed it meant I wasn't ready. That I wasn't sure.

But I am sure. I've been sure for a long time. No more running away from each other. I hold the ring in my palm and drop back into bed. I curl into Peeta's sleeping arms. He wakes blurrily, nuzzling his chin into my neck.

"Peeta?" I whisper.

"Hm?" he asks sleepily.

"I'm so sorry," I say, my voice catching in my throat. He opens his eyes and I lay on my back, looking up at him. "I am so so so sorry," I repeat. "I was out of my mind with grief and I hurt you so badly. After all we'd been through I hurt you so badly."

I imagine what it might have been like had our roles been reversed. Had my mind been scrambled and my entire family killed. Had I had only one person I could trust, and they betrayed that trust in such an unbearable way. Would I recover from that? Would I forgive him?

He's always been a better person than me.

"It's over now, right? No more lies?" he asks softly. I nod, tears burning my eyes. "If we hurt, we hurt together. If we plot, we plot together. If we run, we run together."

"You're stuck with me, Mellark," I whisper. He smiles and drops his mouth down to mine. The kiss is soft, a brushing of lips.

"Good," he breathes on my mouth before dropping back into the bed and pulling me into him. It's barely a minute before he's asleep again, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I feel serenely happy. I feel more at peace than I have in my entire life. I open my palm and stare at the ring – its twisting branches and milky pearl. I remember the beach, and the train, and our room. I remember falling apart and putting each other back together. I remember every complicated, aching step that got us here.

I slip the ring on my finger and let the night lull me under.


	20. Chapter 20 - It's Done

Peeta doesn't notice the ring right away. He makes breakfast early. He drinks black coffee as he washes a skillet in the sink. I braid my hair and watch him out of the corner of my eye. We dress in our work clothes and head down to the construction site.

We're installing doors and windows today. Peeta's been preoccupied making sure the display window in the front is just right. We only had standard window panes in district and we had to wait weeks for the large pane of glass to arrive from the Capitol. He and Thom framed up the space last week. Peeta heads inside the framework of the bakery and positions himself on one side of the window. He sticks his tongue out at me playfully while I stand outside. The pane is lowered between us and for a moment I remember standing here with Prim looking at all the pretty cakes in the window. Peeta gives me a soft smile and I think he's there in his mind too. She's still here with us, even if she's not.

It's when we are settling the glass pane into place - Peeta on the inside looking out at me, me outside looking in – that his glance falls to my hand. The ring glimmers in the pale, November sunlight.

"Katniss," he mouths, but I can't hear him through the glass. His eyes are wide when he looks back up at me. His hand presses against the window and for a minute I remember watching him in the hospital, wishing for him to come back to me. I lift my hand and place is across from his, the glint of sunlight reflecting off the sheen of the metal band. Peeta sprints from where he is, dashing behind the wall. I watch as the bakery door we just installed is slammed open carelessly, as if it has no importance in the world other than the crime of keeping us apart.

"Hey Peet, what's going on?" Thom asks, but Peeta doesn't look away from me. He steps forward.

"Really?" he asks, his voice so eager I can't help but smile. I nod. "Really?" he says again.

"Yeah," I smile and he sweeps me into his arms and lifts me in the air. The entire work crew is staring but for once, I don't care. It's not a nation of strangers. It's the people we've grown up with. It's the people that are putting this world back together, that are putting _our_ world back together.

"You want to marry me, Katniss Everdeen?" he whispers, looking up at me.

"Mmhmm," I nod.

He loosens his grip and I slide down his body slowly until my feet touch the ground. He presses his mouth to mine and I find that warmth, that steadiness that has encouraged me, that has told me I'm worth being loved. The crew disperses and for a moment I remember us still on the dance floor while the world spun around us. I'm living in memories this morning, but the only way I know how to move forward is to look back and remind myself where we came from and how we got here.

We finish the work day like nothing has changed but the moment we walk through the door Peeta grabs my hand and pulls me into him. He wraps his arms around me so tight it might hurt if it weren't so full of love and joy.

"I can't believe this is really happening," he whispers into my hair.

"I love you, Peeta," I say quietly into his chest. He loosens his hands slightly and rubs the muscles in my back. I melt into him.

"I love you too," he murmurs back.

It's cold outside, so we have layers and layers of clothes on. We remove them from each other with careful, icy fingers. Our skin prickles with chill as it's exposed to the air. Our fingernails are caked with dirt and our skin is sticky with dried sweat from the work day. We don't make it to the bedroom. We don't even make it out of the breezeway. We need each other – now, in this moment, and always. He comes with me and we drop heavily to the floor, our love-scorched skin pressed against the cold floorboards. I leave him panting and sated on the floor before move to the living room to start a fire. Peeta watches me as I wrap my body in a blanket from the couch and I build the flame. The cold dissipates from the air and with it the fear, the doubts that I've harbored since I lost my dad. This is right. This is supposed to happen. Peeta finally peels himself from the floor and joins me in front of the fire. I open my arms and he wraps himself inside the blanket with me. I remember us sleeping on the couch on the train. I remember listening to his heart and thinking it was the sweetest lullaby.

"You should get some bread," I whisper and his eyes shoot up at me, open wide.

"You want to do it tonight?" he asks, trying to temper himself as though I can't feel his heart hammering against my chest.

"I don't want to waste any more time," I answer. "I'm done not being your wife."

He grins so wide I think he might break his face. Peeta kisses my cheek before he slips out from under the blanket.

"Woah it's cold out here!" he throws a playful smile over his shoulder. It's my job to stoke the stove before we leave for the day but I was too distracted this morning. This cold house is my fault.

"Well then hurry up!" I tease back.

"Impatient, even on our wedding day," Peeta jests as he slips back into the blanket and kisses my neck. We sit on the floor and lay the blanket in front of us so it covers our legs and chests. Peeta sets the bread between us and suddenly all the playful, joking spirit evaporates. This is real. We are really doing this.

"I, um…" I ramble. Another person might mistake it for uncertainty, but Peeta knows me now. He just sits. Waits. Doesn't push. Doesn't expect anything from me. Just lets me figure out what I want to do, what I want to say. "I didn't know myself a few years ago. I was closed off, even from myself I was closed off. Then I volunteered, and your name was called, and our lives changed. The world changed with us. You are the one constant for me. Whether we were together or apart. Whether you remembered me, whether I wanted you to." I blush and look at my hands. This is probably the most words I have strung together about us. About almost anything. "All day I kept slipping back into these memories of our journey here. It's not reminiscing. It's not memorializing. I just watched the steps we took toward each other and I realized…" My throat closes and I try to get the words out without crying. "This would have happened anyway, Peeta. All roads lead to you. Games or not. War or not. I was just too stupid to get out of my own way."

"You're not stupid," he whispers, and I realize his eyes are welled up with tears.

"Shut up, I am," I choke out, laughing and crying at once. "I was. But I'm not stupid anymore. This," I gesture between us. "You and me? Us? This is it for me. Forever."

He's smiling and looks down as a tear escapes and drips off the tip of his nose. He sniffs and runs his hands over his face.

"Sorry," he mumbles, trying to regain his composure.

"Don't be," I say back, weaving my fingers in his. I stare at our hands – scarred, burned. But they match. We match.

"Katniss Everdeen," he starts, pulling the blanket tight around my shoulders. "You told me you never wanted to get married."

"Are you seriously rubbing that in my face right now?" I laugh. He kisses me softly and nods.

"It used to make me sad. Not just because I wanted you, because I have for as long as I can remember. It used to make me sad to think of you alone. Because you are this great big bright ball of love, and it would be such a waste to see you tuck that away," Peeta says. "You said you changed, but I think you are exactly the same. You have been open with your love since the moment I finally got to speak to you on the train."

I give him a look. That's not even a little bit true. He laughs.

"Not with me," Peeta adds with a smile. "With Cinna, with Rue, with Finnick. You made Haymitch care about his life again. You love people so fiercely, so strongly, that those of us that are lucky enough to be loved by you would do anything for you. I'm not the only one you've made into a lovesick fool." He leans forward and presses his hot lips on the cold skin of my neck. "I've always known what a beautiful person you are. But I don't think you could truly love me back until you finally saw that, too."

I realize what Peeta has been doing for the last three years. He's been slowly dismantling me, carefully extracting every bit of self-loathing and doubt. Of disgust and anger. He's found every piece of me that hated myself, exposed it to the light, let it wither away, and put me back together again. The only reason I'm ready to love him is because I finally love me, too.

He didn't need me to fall in love with him.

He needed me to love myself enough to want to give myself something beautiful.

To let me have him.

He studies my face as the realization overwhelms me. The corner of his mouth curls and I want to lay my lips on his.

"You love me. Real or not real?"

"Real."

We toast the bread. His bread, my flame. We kiss and talk and eat and make love until we're exhausted and our bodies tremble. We sleep in front of the fire, not wanting the night to end.

The next day we find Gerty at the new Justice Center.

"Weren't you married already?" she asks with a nasal voice as she finds the appropriate paperwork. She has us sign some forms and slides two identical steel bands across the counter. I slide mine onto my hand next to my ring. Peeta slips his on his left hand.

With that, it's done.


	21. Chapter 21 - The Cake

When I wake up Peeta's already in the kitchen baking. I sit up and wrap the blanket around me. Peeta senses the movement and looks up at me.

"Morning," he smiles. I think he might never stop smiling.

"Morning," I rumble. The house is warm with the fire and the oven both burning. I wrap the blanket around my body and pad into the kitchen. "Breakfast?" I ask, and Peeta chuckles.

"Not quite. I had a recipe idea for the bakery last night," he says, reaching into the cabinet for a mixing bowl. "You want some breakfast though? I can make eggs."

"Sure," I nod, perching on my tiptoes and pressing a kiss just under his jaw. I notice a tiny smudge of yellow paint on his neck. "What's this?" I ask.

"Oh," he blushes bashfully before grabbing a damp cloth and wiping the stain off. "I was painting."

"Are you okay?" I ask, trying not to show my concern. He paints to let out the demons, to define his reality. He smiles, though.

"Yeah. Yellow's a happy color, Katniss," he answers.

"I'm going to go get dressed," I respond.

"Or you could just stay like that forever," he says wistfully, painting a memory of me with a messy braid and the blanket around my body.

I head upstairs, but as I pass his paint studio I linger at the door. His paintings are private. He only shows them to me occasionally, when he's trying to make sense of something. I listen downstairs and hear Peeta whisking something in a bowl. I silently push the door open.

He's a prolific painter. There are canvases upon canvases piled along the walls. Some are horrific – twisted faces and mangled hands. Some are too abstract for me really to know what's really going on, but even the colors and strokes of the brush tell a story. There's a painting of a brilliant light pouring down from above. I think an onlooker might see it as beautiful and serene, but I know he's reliving Johanna's death. My eyes drift to the easel, on what created this morning.

The canvas is still wet. The painting is of me, last night, in front of the fire. The portrait shows my back – long and lean, my skin scarred with flame and hurt. But there's something about the way he's painted it. It's honest, yes, but in a way, he's made my scars look beautiful, like they are some kind of mosaic. Like I'm put together by bits of vibrant glass, made beautiful by the way they fit together.

I finally see me the way he sees me.

Extraordinary.

I stare at the painting for too long and realize he'll wonder where I am. I sneak out of the room and close the door. I find clothes and head back downstairs, thick wool socks on my feet. I sit at a stool on the counter and Peeta sets a mug of black tea in front of me along with a plate of eggs and buttered toast. And that's how our married life starts.

Boring.

I like it.

We don't tell anyone right away, but Delly notices the ring on my hand over dinner and soon the whole family knows. Haymitch slaps Peeta on the back. Effie tries to pout about how she wasn't invited, but she can't keep the happy sparkle out of her eyes. Rye takes to calling me sis. Rory doesn't understand what the big deal is.

The bakery is complete by the time the first snow hits. Our village now is peppered with dozens of sturdy homes and a few essential shops. There are no cold hands, no hungry bellies in the first storm. There are only cozy fires and crowded tables. The air of the bakery is warm and welcoming against my frozen cheeks as I step inside. Peeta slides the lock on the bakery door and turns back to me, exhausted.

"That was a day," he says, leaning back against the door. "I forgot how busy the day before a storm is."

The shop was packed he tells me as I remove my heavy coat and set hang it on the rack. Peeta and Rye could barely keep up with orders as Hazelle managed the crowd. She only left an hour ago, rushing home to be with her little ones before the icy sleet began. We can hear it now, hammering the roof like an unorganized symphony.

"When did Rye leave?" I ask.

"I kicked him out around the same time as Hazelle. He doesn't like being away from Delly now that she's expecting," Peeta answers, returning to the sink. He washes the day's tools and I dry, setting them on the table. I don't know where anything goes. Not yet, anyway.

"What are you doing here, by the way?"

"You weren't going to make it home before the storm started," I answer. I don't say more but he knows. We don't spend the night apart. He would have come to me in the sleet and snow. He would have caught a fever. "I brought dinner," I say, reaching into my bag and setting a glass container of food on the counter.

"Thanks, I'm famished," he says, removing the lid and digging in.

"You don't want to warm it up?" I ask, watching him shovel food in his mouth like he's spent a week in the Arena.

"Nope," he replies through a mouth full of sweet potato. We eat on stools in the bakery kitchen. Upstairs is an apartment but it's unfurnished save a bare mattress and box spring. We live in the village.

"So old man Barton was here earlier," Peeta says after chugging the entire glass of water. Mr. Barton is one of the few remaining townspeople. His only son died in the siege on the Capitol. He's been a widower for years. His brickyard was one of the first structures built as his craft was indispensable for the rest of the reconstruction effort. He's nearly seventy but labored at the kiln every day for months making bricks to hold up houses for generation to come. "He came to see Hazelle. Guess Vick keeps hanging around the shop. He wanted to know if he'd be interested in an apprenticeship."

I nearly drop my fork. That would be life changing for the Hawthornes, learning an invaluable trade. Peeta smiles at me and takes his bowl to the sink. A fierce gust of wind blows outside and the lights flicker. It's comforting, though. I've always like the sound of a storm outside my window.

"That would be amazing," I reply.

"I know," Peeta grins back. "So what else is in that magic bag of yours?"

I slide the bag across the room. I dig out blankets and a set of playing cards. "Any chance there's a toothbrush in there?" he asks. I frown. I've never been domestic, not sure why he thought I might be good at packing. "It's okay," he responds. He gets a small bowl and mixes a concoction of mint leaves, baking soda, and coconut oil.

"You should have shown that as your skill to the Gamemakers," I tease. "The rest of us would all be too gross for close-ups and you'd have shiny white teeth in an Arena. Think of all your sponsors." I run my tongue over my teeth and remember the unpleasantness of days without a toothbrush.

We talk for a while. I spent most of the day canning the late green bean harvest from Delly's garden. She managed to get most of them before the frost. We play cards. We laugh. We sit in comfortable silence, drinking mint tea and taking in the bakery.

"I used to dream about you coming to the bakery," Peeta says, resting his chin on his hands at the wooden counter. "Before the Reaping. That one day I'd look up and you'd be standing at the counter."

"Oh yeah?" I ask.

"I'd try to think of something to say, but even in my fantasy I was completely tongue-tied around you," he laughs.

"You remember that?" I ask, watching his face. Peeta's had some kind of breakthrough in the last few weeks. Since the toasting, really. His doctor told him it's because Peeta finally feels safe. I'm not sure I buy it, but for whatever reason, memories of us have been pushing their way to the surface.

"I remember a lot about you," he says softly.

It's cold upstairs, away from the warmth of the oven. We brush our teeth with Peeta's homemade toothpaste and our fingers, heads bobbing around each other as we spit in the sink and rinse our mouths with water. We find the bare mattress and I pile it high with blankets before we crawl inside. We knot ourselves together. My lips ghost over his neck until my teeth gently take his earlobe. I slide myself on top of him.

"So you'd imagine me coming into the bakery?" I whisper. His eyes open wide and shoot at me. "Tell me about your fantasy," I breathe, tugging at his hair slightly.

"You'd be at the front desk," he breathes, trying to keep his eyes open but unable to focus as my hands dip under his shirt and I trace a finger at the waist of his shorts.

"What would I be doing?" I ask, nipping his neck. He writhes with want underneath me as my fingers torture him, dipping slightly under his waistband and out again.

"You said you wanted to buy something, but it was a lie. You wanted to see me," Peeta says through a soft moan captured in his throat.

"Mmhmm," I purr into his skin and I feel a flash of heat rush over his body. He twitches in his shorts. I take my hand and rub him gently through the fabric and he makes a gargling sound. "Then?"

"Oh god. Then you'd ask for a tour of the bakery and we'd somehow end up in my room," he spits out, his hips rocking underneath me. Finally I hook my thumb in his shorts and pull them over his hips, leaving him bare below me. I wrap my hand around him and he's already soaked.

"And?" I ask playfully.

He's panting now, bucking against my hand.

"And?" I ask again.

"And you let me see you," he spits out, his hands reaching for my tee shirt and pulling it away from my body. "You let me touch you," he breathes, his hand sweeping over my breast and teasing my nipple. Even in Peeta's fantasy, he's an unselfish lover. Focused on me. I gasp a little and try to focus on him. I draw my mouth along his chest, my lips feathering over his stomach as I journey down his body. Peeta watches me in amazement.

"Did I do this?" I ask as I reach him, my hand pumping hard.

"No," he confesses. "I, I…" He tries to form words but I've pushed him past the point where he can.

"Would you have wanted me to?" I ask. He nods feverishly. I watch him unravel in my hand before I slip my mouth over him. He moves his hips so he's sliding himself in and out of my lips. He cries out.

"Shh, they'll hear you," I scold before taking him again. He tries to bury the noise as I lavish him. He's fantasizing about this rendezvous. If I'd really come, if I'd really taken him upstairs. If he'd had to try to hide these sounds under the racket of a busy shop downstairs. I suck and push him to his limits until he becomes entirely undone and begs me to push him over the edge. When he does it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

He drops onto his back and stares at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling.

We don't sleep that night. Instead we spend hours exploring what it means to be married to each other. Panting breaths. Long talks. Late night snacks. Routine. Love.

The storm rages outside and we sleep through most of the next day, the bakery doors bolted closed against the heavy snow.

Peeta bakes the recipe he was working on the morning after our toasting. He's been secretive about it over the last few weeks as he's tried to perfect the confection. He says it's to be the signature dish at the bakery.

When he presents it to me, he watches my face for a reaction. I take a bite and it melts in my mouth, my tongue covered in cream and sugar and cinnamon.

"I'm calling it a Cheshire Cake."

 **A/N: Props to stjohn27 for some inspiration in this chapter.**


	22. Chapter 22 - Growing Together

Winter thaws to Spring. Spring slips into Summer. Delly's baby is born and I watch Peeta thoughtfully as he tickles his rolling belly. Finnick and Annie come and stay for a month. Jo takes his first steps on our living room floor. Finnick and I get lost in the woods together. Rye tags along. He likes Finnick, even though he tries not to.

It's when I'm sitting in the bathroom staring at the blood between my legs that my life starts to change.

"I started my period," I tell Peeta that night as he's folding clothes and putting them in our drawers. He stops.

"Really?" he asks, a wary smile on his lips.

I should have started months ago. When I didn't, we assumed my womb was something else Snow took from me. That I lost Cinna and motherhood in the beating before the Quell.

"I'm not ready," I spit out quickly. It doesn't erase the smile.

"I know. But, I'm just glad you have a choice now," Peeta says back before he places the pile of folded shirts in my drawer.

A choice.

I'm not ready. Days slip by. Months. Our life becomes wonderfully monotonous. We have traditions. Our makeshift family shares holidays. The following year District 12 brings back Midsummer. Peeta makes lemon squares and Effie forces Haymitch to dance.

One morning I swing by the Hawthorne house to take Rory hunting and find the red-headed girl asleep in his bed. Hazelle curses like I've never heard her curse before. Rory spends the Fall building himself a house. The toasting is boisterous and large. Half the district shows up. Peeta squeezes my hand and I think of that night in the blanket, just the two of us. Promises and fire and bread. The kids that come to the bakery call Peeta Mr. Mellark. It's bittersweet and beautiful at the same time.

My mother comes every so often. We see her in the winter in District 4. Hazelle and Rye run the bakery in Peeta's absence. When we get back he spends weeks trying to put things back where they belong.

Peeta faces triggers now and again. The first one came nearly three years after we were home. I'm still not sure if the word was _iron_ or _board_. I was pressing one of his shirts for an event in town and the words were barely in the air before he doubled over.

"Peeta!" I cried out, running toward him. I didn't think it was a trigger. I didn't think it could be. It had been so long. His fists balled in his hair and he rocked back and forth on his heels. Finnick came pounding up the stairs and the two of us talked him down. He managed to stay in control, but it was excruciating. I stripped his sweat-soaked clothes from his body and put him to bed. Annie stayed vigilantly at his side while I had a silent breakdown in the hallway outside our bedroom door. Finnick wrapped his hands around my shoulders and squeezed me tight while we listened to Jo playing downstairs.

"I just thought it was over," I breathed into his shirt.

Triggers come and go now. Sometimes I'll find him clutching the back of a chair, grinding his teeth to get through the pain. He's never once raised a hand at me. He's never once lost control. He'll spend the rest of the day in our room with all the lights off, then he'll stay up all night painting. He comes to bed with dried paint on his hands and the early morning light in the sky. He'll wrap himself around me and lift my nightshirt, pressing his stomach into my back. He finds his way home to me.

The book grows. Faces and names and stories of those we left behind. Those that built our story. Pages of memories and loss and growth and joy.

The bakery is a tribute in and of itself. Peeta has the family's traditions, yes – frosted cookies and sourdough bread. But he channels his life into his work. He makes a strawberry dessert dressed with airy whipped cream blended with lemon zest. He calls it a Foxfaced Treat. He makes a dense shortbread with perfectly square angles and calls it Boggs Bread. He makes tiny candies with walnuts and caramel and dark chocolate and calls them Rues. He makes cinnamon balls so potent they set your mouth on fire – Jojos. Once a year he makes a fluffy white cake with cream as light as clouds. He orders gold leaf from the Capitol and dresses the peaks until they glitter. I know it's meant for Cinna.

We build a community.

We find routine. He bakes. I hunt. Haymitch's geese are noisy and I hate them, but he hasn't touched white liquor since they came to stay. Since Effie didn't leave.

When Greasy Sae finally passes away, I let myself grieve in a way I hadn't been able to with the deaths before hers. She died a free woman. Death isn't so terrible when your life was rich and good. When you know the person knew happiness and safety and love. We don't mourn the same way we did before. We hurt, yes. But we also celebrate her life. Sae's granddaughter moves in with a family in town whose son is a little slow, too. The two of them run a farm stand on the weekends. Everyone overpays them for everything.

The medicine factory goes up. Instead of sending our men and women underground, we learn a new trade. The pay is good, the hours are reasonable. We have something to be proud of in our district. People move here. The population grows. We are still far and away the smallest district, but we have a sense of kinship here.

It's over a decade before I let my guard down. My last shot expires and I stare at the page in the Capitol catalogue to order another. I look up and see Peeta in the kitchen shaving carrots with a paring knife. I put the pen down.

My period stops six months later. The early mornings find me sitting on the bathroom tile. Rory is frustrated I'm not hunting more. When I confirm my suspicions, the happy feeling I thought would overcome me is markedly absent. Instead, a primal fear rushes over my body, a fear as old as time itself. It feels like my veins are full of acid and I puke into the toilet. As I watch the bile flush away, I remember sitting on the bathroom floor with Prim. She'd eaten something out of a dumpster during our bad times and spent hours retching into the toilet. I don't think my mom noticed. She certainly didn't care.

"It will be over soon, little duck," I'd whispered as I rubbed my hand over her back. Her muscles ached from heaving. I offered what little comfort I could. I ran a wet washcloth over her face; I sang soft melodies. Eventually she was just passing bile and then nothing at all. She was barely seven when she stared up at me with her crystal blue eyes, the whites pink from strain.

"You're going to make a really good mother someday," she said before curling into my lap and sleeping on the bathroom floor.

Her words ring in my head and the panic subsides. I will love this baby. I will make a good mother. Someday. Someday soon.

When I go downstairs Peeta is on a stool in the kitchen, drinking coffee and drawing in the margin of the Sunday newspaper. I kiss his neck and he squirms playfully. He hasn't noticed my new morning toilet ritual as most days he's at the bakery by dawn. I pour myself a mug of herbal barley tea and stand on the opposite side of the island, leaning over and watching him sketch. His eyes draw up from the page and he watches me.

"You look pretty this morning," he says softly, taking me in before dropping his eyes to the pencil again.

I want tell him in a special way, so he remembers it. I chew the inside of my lip and play out the scenarios.

"What's got you thinking so hard?" Peeta asks. He reaches over and pushes a stray hair behind my ear.

"We're pregnant," I spit out. _We_ are pregnant. Nothing is just me or him anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. We are in this together. This is our baby. _We_ are pregnant.

The pencil slips from Peeta's finger and bounces across the countertop. It rolls over the edge and clatters lightly on the floor. Before I register what's happening Peeta is up and over the counter, the most direct route to his pregnant wife. He cups my face in his hands and kisses me through a teethy smile.

"Really? Really? This is real?" he asks on bubbling breaths.

"Yeah, it's real," I respond.

As terrified as I am, as many horrible memories as I have permanently etched in the crevices of my brain, I will never forget his smile the moment I told Peeta he was going to be a father.

The pregnancy is difficult for me. When I feel the baby kick, I panic that he's trashing in pain. The nausea goes away but is replaced by an unforgiving fatigue. The only time I feel okay is when I sing to the baby, and so I sing a lot. I rub my hands on my swollen belly and offer melodies from long ago. Peeta is doting to the point of absurdity and more than once I have to throw him out of the house.

I still have two months left of my pregnancy when I feel a sharp pain and substantial pressure between my legs. I've been ignoring cramping off and on all morning. With no healer in town, I've delivered my fair share of babies in the years we've been home. I know when to tell a nervous mother to calm down. But this feels different. This feels serious.

"Peeta!" I scream out, but he's not home. I waddle to the front door, hand on my stomach. I'm so swollen now I barely recognize myself. I don't bother with shoes. My feet are too engorged and I can't bend over to put them on anyway. I make my way to Haymitch's house and slam on the door with my fist. Another wave of pressure comes again and I clench my legs together. It feels like my intestines are curling and writhing in my body.

"Haymitch!" I bellow, but there's no answer.

I walk to the bakery, pausing every couple minutes to kneel over. I take the front door since the back has stairs. I never enter through the front, so when Peeta sees me sweat-ridden and panting at the glass display case, he knows.

"This is all your fault, Mellark," I complain loudly as he ushers me out back. Another contraction hits. My knees feel weak. "It's too early," I whimper, but it doesn't matter what I want or don't want at that point. I give birth to our son on the floor on the bakery. The wood feels like it's grinding into my hips and it takes days for my body to remember not to hurt. The baby is impossibly tiny and perfect. Peeta looks at him with an inimitable love. Peeta comes to bed and spies Wren splayed on my stomach, blissfully milk drunk. He wraps his arms around me.

"I didn't know it was possible to love a person this much," Peeta whispers, pressing his lips to my temple.

The girl comes a couple years later – Juniper. My son grows up in my silent footsteps. We spend our lives slipping between the trees with Rory and his red-haired daughter Willow. Juniper is glued to her father. She paints and draws and molds things out of clay.

Neither of them can bake. Peeta blames himself, but they both have a spark of impatience they got from their mom.

Haymitch and Effie spoil the children rotten. I'll often notice one missing from the yard and find them on Haymitch's porch, sitting on his knee and feeding the geese.

I'm nearly forty when I realize I'm pregnant again. The other two are already halfway through school. Jo is engaged to be married. I complain about starting over, about diapers and sleepless nights, but when our last is born, it's like she's the piece of our family we didn't know was missing. Blonde hair, pale gray eyes.

Autumn.

She bakes.

I tell our children about the past. Kids ask blunt questions. Where did Daddy's leg go? I don't know how to answer why my skin doesn't look like theirs. I don't know how to explain why sometimes Daddy gets headaches and needs to be left alone. I don't know what to say when they ask what I was like when I was a kid. The world was a different place then.

I tell them the truth as best I can.

We don't lie in this house.

At night, when the kids are settling to sleep, we make a list. Every night we list every good thing we saw that day. We remind ourselves why we are free. We remember those we lost along the way. We thank the universe for letting us stay, like Auntie Delly does at dinner.

When I close the bedroom door, Peeta weaves his hand in mine.

"Bed?" he asks.

"Bed," I nod. He brushes his teeth. I sit on the toilet lid and braid my hair. He opens the window and drops into bed, sliding his prosthetic on the floor. I lay my head on his chest and count the beats as the rhythm slows with sleep.

"I love you, Katniss," he whispers as dreams lull him under.

I remember how once those words would have made me run. I tug his shirt up a little until I see his skin, and do the same with mine. I press my stomach into his back and feel him hot against me. He's like a furnace, keeping my bed, my heart, my home warm.

"I love you too," I answer back.


	23. Thank you!

And that's it! What was supposed to be a brief view at the Victory Tour turned into a five-book series. Thanks for taking the journey with me.

As always, a huge shout out to my #1 fans – stjohn27 and jroseley.

And to my loyal readers who keep me going, especially - Ifdy, wonderishome, shurickluk, WWHPmockingjayLILI, Resisting-Moonlight, ryebrewster, TwinK21, Akdaneger, Niqachita, wonderishome, Ariel-Scarlett, Tea4e, Shellibug, betheniaroy, Dancer0109, klarsen117, TJ, rebelsroyalty, everlarkforevergalone, Pari B, AmIReallyLiving9, , crimeserieslover, LadyH90, Sandra, Spoonlicker, Evangeline the Gothic Angel, mystictiger23, Robin9595, pookieortega, Maybe89, nandy7781, DauntlessVolunteer, deltagirl74

So the Light Up series is done… but I'm feeling inspired again. If you don't have me set up as a Favorite Author you may not know that I published another story a couple days ago – Defying the Stars. It's super Everlarky. Come read! First couple chapters are already up!

Again, thank you all to your patience and support and love during this series. Phew.

THANK YOU!


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